This week’s lesson was very crucial to understanding what women go through. This class is about women and health and now I can see how everything flows together and connects. Reframing violence against women and trauma as health issues in Haiti both challenges and reinforces our understanding of health, illness, and medicine. There is a lot of violence that goes on in Haiti that affects their health. For the issue I am researching being chronic respiratory illnesses in Haiti, I learned that the marriage between the husband and wife is almost always set up by the moms and dads of the family. Most of the time, the love in the marriage is almost ever “there” or “real”. The husband forces the woman to do dirty housework jobs and hard labor which is why the majority of the people who get sick with chronic illnesses are women. The men are seen to be the superior ones in the family and to always be respected and never talked back to. The women in Haiti not only do the house work and clean all day, but they also do hard demanding labor such as getting fresh water and food for the family which is not easy and is very hard on the body. The women rarely ever get any time off of work and this is why they are at more of a risk in getting these chronic respiratory illnesses than men are. According to studies from Medline University, studies show that since the “stress levels in a women in Haiti are so high, her body is not able to take care of itself, so the immune system is weaker, putting her at a greater potential for chronic illnesses” (Medline 2003). The women of Haiti are unable to give their bodies the rest that it needs, and are constantly pushing their bodies to excruciating levels every day which is why they are the majority of the population who gets sick. “The physical aspect of these conditions is very draining on the woman, but the mental aspect of it could worsen their conditions and put them into a deep depression”(Gamel 1999). While reading Sperilch’s discussion and reading about what is defined as trauma, I can now see how this all ties together for the health of women in Haiti. Sperilch defines trauma as “life threatening events” in which could be seen with the issue of chronic respiratory illnesses of the women in Haiti (Sperich). 

The concept of expressing violence against women and trauma as health issues, generally, shows that there is a lot of preventions and medicines in the biomedical feild that tend to make this problen not as bad, but at the same time, there is such a long way to go about solving the issues that occur. My issue that I am researching being chronic respiratory illnesses in Haiti is an epidemic issue that many groups and organizations are trying to solve. The whole illness itself is currently  being treated by vaccines, but the Haitian government is trying to pass laws that allow women to marry the person whom she wants instead of being in a forced relationship and marriage. The issue with the vaccines that are being sent to Haiti for this is that they are so expensive and Haiti is so poor that barely anyone could afford these vaccinations. There is also the problem being that the man of the house is the one who makes the money, so they are usually unwilling to spend money on their wives, whom they barely even show affection to, to cure her from this chronic illness. According to medline University, “over 55% of people who get sick with these chronic respiratory illnesses are women, 23% of them being under the age of 40” (Medline 2003). I always knew that the women in Haiti were not treated as equally as men, but I never knew the extent of this and was oblivious to it until I read and learned about it from their everyday lives tied into their health. The women in Haiti are not only physically affected by these illnesses ,but also very mentally affected. There needs to be a chance in the women’s life in order for her to live a happy healthy life. There are efforts being implemented to try and help women with this, although, more needs to be done. Many people in America don’t think about things like this because it is very rare for something like this to happen here in America. 

Vinekar, Kavita, et al. “Hospitalizations and Deaths Because of Respiratory and Diarrheal Diseases Among Haitian Children Under Five Years of Age, 2011-2013.” The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Oct. 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4610905/.

Neuberger, Ami, et al. “Infectious Diseases Seen in a Primary Care Clinic in Leogane, Haiti.” The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 1 Jan. 2012, www.ajtmh.org/content/journals/10.4269/ajtmh.2012.11-0426.

“Home – PubMed – NCBI.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/.