TB in Roma Communities
Confronting a Hidden Disease : TB in Roma Communities is a new report by Marta Schaaf of the World Lung Foundation, on behalf of the Open Society Institute’s Roma Health Project.
The report outlines the available literature and data on Roma and TB in Central and Eastern Europe and existing interventions by governments and NGOs to address TB in Roma communities. According to the report current efforts are not yet nationwide and tend to be primarily focused on data collection.
The report also addresses barriers to health care access and TB control in Roma communities, including economic, cultural, geographic, and knowledge-based barriers as well as those posed by stigma.
The report aims to bring research needs and program opportunities to the attention of national TB programs, ministries of health, social affairs, or minority integration, international agencies, and NGOs.
The main conclusions and recommendations from the report were :
Ethnic elements of Roma vulnerability to TB must be considered in both research and interventions. However, programmes should target geographic areas ;
Gender differences must be addressed ;
Roma should be involved in programme design and implementation of interventions, including community-level interventions.
Report by the European Roma Rights Centre
European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is an international public interest law organisation combating anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of Roma.
A new report by ERRC, entitled Ambulance Not on the Way : The Disgrace of Health Care for Roma in Europe, highlights the discrimination faced by many Roma within Europe.
The report describes various forms of discrimination, such as, exclusion from health services, inferior quality of health services, denial of treatment of Romani patients by health care providers, segregation of Roma in medical facilities and coercive sterilisation of Romani women.
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