2 results
2 - COVID-19, Health Inequalities and the Lived Experience of British Muslims
- Edited by Sufyan Abid Dogra, Bradford Institute for Health Research
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- Book:
- British Muslims, Ethnicity and Health Inequalities
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 18 October 2023
- Print publication:
- 31 January 2023, pp 19-46
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- Chapter
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Summary
COVID-19, Health Inequalities and British Muslims
Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19: death rates are higher and survival rates are lower, with statistics varying in different BME communities (Public Health England 2020b). BME communities are at risk of higher infection rates and mortality rates due to certain pre-disposed health conditions and living in poorer, overcrowded housing (Meer et al. 2020). These higher infection and mortality rates together with the fear of spreading the virus or catching it from others have caused further distress. Ethnic minorities in Britain have experienced a disproportional impact of COVID-19, as for these groups the pandemic was translated as a syndemic pandemic (Bambra et al. 2020) because of pre-pandemic inequalities on all social determinants of health such as unhealthy dietary practices, poor housing and working conditions, unemployment, poor access to healthcare, high levels of inactivity and discrimination that ethnic minorities and the majority of British Muslims live with.
This chapter highlights the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on British Muslims and how the pandemic exposed prevalent health inequalities in the UK. We critically analyse the discussions around faith in relation to COVID-19, victim blaming, its impacts and the socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19 lockdowns on marginalised British Muslims. We evaluate the vulnerabilities of British Muslims working in the NHS and healthcare and the responses by professional Muslim organisations providing healthcare awareness. We explore the interplay of ethnicity, religion and deprivation in negotiating the particular challenges of living through COVID-19. We critically evaluate and problematise the notions around ‘vaccine hesitancy’, and question the emphasis on national religious organisations of British Muslims for responses to COVID-19 instead of professional medical organisations or small-scale community-based organisations. We assess the impact of COVID-19 on British Muslim families, children, charity and voluntary organisations, physical activity, mental health and wellbeing, and how British Muslims living in deprived neighbourhoods responded to the pandemic through engaging with community groups. We highlight the work of neighbourhood and community-based organisations and services for healthcare awareness by professional Muslim groups. This chapter also includes multidisciplinary perspectives of academics and practitioners on the pandemic, lockdown, vaccination and subsequent socioeconomic implications of COVID-19 with regard to British Muslims’ lived experience.
12 - Addressing Mental Health through Islamic Counselling: A Faith-Based Therapeutic Intervention
- Edited by Sufyan Abid Dogra, Bradford Institute for Health Research
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- Book:
- British Muslims, Ethnicity and Health Inequalities
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 18 October 2023
- Print publication:
- 31 January 2023, pp 256-286
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Understanding the Relationships of Faith, Experience and Mental Health in UK Muslim Communities
Little emphasis is placed on mental health in comparison with physical health, concerning health provision in general and specifically regarding the wellbeing of Muslim communities. For this reason, there is a need to highlight concerns about Muslim mental health for Muslim communities themselves, as well as for policy makers, commissioners and service providers. Globally, 1.8 billion people are Muslim and so share the belief system that is Islam through which they interpret their experience of self and reality. This chapter presents some of the key issues around common mental health conditions and the experience of them by Muslims. In doing so there is a need to draw attention to the inequalities experienced by Muslims in the context of the present lack of equality of appropriate provision in mental healthcare.
Faith or religion is not a common point to start from in considering mental wellbeing or the impact of variables that concern it. In itself, faith or religion is not necessarily considered as a critical factor in understanding mental health as our social, as opposed to biological, conceptions are generally based in cultural contexts (WHO and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 2014). As the social determinants of mental health are primarily understood within cultural paradigms which are often reduced to ethnicity, much of the thinking in the UK about social policy and service provision is implicitly secular. For this reason, let us start by understanding religion as ‘a social identity that is grounded in a system of guiding beliefs, and may serve as a powerful tool to shape psychological and social processes’ (Ysseldyk et al. 2010).
Research has shown that in and of itself, religion contributes to the experience of greater positive and fewer negative emotions for the people who believe in it (Kim-Prieto and Diener 2009). However, despite a significant amount of data gathered generally about the relationship between faith and mental health, much of this concerns Christianity (Cornah 2006). Christianity has a long historical impact on Western thinking and is fundamentally linked to Aristotelian epistemology in the development of the sciences.