Overview of Research

The Canadian healthcare system is responsible for ensuring appropriate and effective care for all its citizens, yet evidence suggests not everyone is treated equally. In the Fall of 2022, the McMaster Research Shop partnered with the Muslim Advisory Council of Canada to investigate experiences of Islamophobia towards Muslim women and children in the healthcare system. To do this, we conducted a scoping review of published academic literature assessing the extent and impact of discrimination towards the target population in Canadian, U.S., and U.K. healthcare settings. We searched for published studies in 5 academic databases and found 14 articles to include in our review.

Summary of Findings

Our review suggests that research on Muslim patient experiences of Islamophobia in healthcare settings is lacking, especially those focusing on women and children in their relevant healthcare settings. To our knowledge, there have been no large-scale Canadian studies quantifying the extent of Islamophobia towards Muslims in Canada using representative samples and validated measures. Moreover, reliance on self- reported measures and other sources of bias in existing studies may undermine their validity.