A new report revealed that discrimination against Muslim women in healthcare settings is underrepresented in Canadian data on the subject.

The Canadian Islamic Advisory Council (MACC), together with researchers at McMaster University, issued a study on Monday examining Islamophobia in healthcare settings in an attempt to paint a picture of where the healthcare system discriminates against Muslim women as patients and healthcare professionals.

While the limited existing data already showed clear areas where discrimination must be combated, the main objective of the report was the scarcity of data.

For his part, Tabassum Wain, Executive Director of the Canadian Anti-Corruption Coordination Center, said in a press release: "As the number of Muslims in Canada continues to grow, we also want to highlight the insufficient amount of research on this topic."

Islamophobia is an ongoing problem in Canada - the latest figures released by Statistics Canada on police-reported hate crimes found that hate crimes targeting the Muslim community increased by 71 percent from 2020 to 2021.

However, how discrimination against the Muslim community affects their experiences within the healthcare system has rarely been considered.

Facing the lack of data tracking discrimination against Muslim women in the Canadian healthcare system, researchers incorporated comparative data from similar countries, surveying a total of 14 studies published from 2004 to 2022, including eight studies from the United States, and three studies each from Canada and the United Kingdom.

The studies included more than 1900 participants overall, with each study’s focus ranging from patient surveys about their experiences with palliative care or maternal care to others who spoke to psychologists about Muslim women’s experiences.

All the studies included Muslim women among the participants, with seven studies focusing exclusively on Muslim women. Although the report initially hoped to look at healthcare experiences of both Muslim women and children, researchers said they were unable to find any studies examining the experiences of Muslim children in healthcare settings.

Researchers looked at both explicit discrimination, such as physical aggression, and more subtle forms of discrimination, such as patients reporting being treated with disdain or being ignored.

The studies also showed a variety of healthcare experiences, with a lack of data making it difficult to determine how widespread discrimination is within the Canadian healthcare system compared to others.

One Ontario study that looked at patient experiences in perinatal care found that most women in the study were satisfied with how healthcare practitioners respected their beliefs and practices, such as supporting requests for modesty and halal food requirements. However, there were only 19 participants.

An American study of 164 participants found that half the group reported experiencing exclusion or neglect in healthcare settings, while 44 percent faced issues wearing Islamic clothing in healthcare settings.

Although Muslims make up a much smaller proportion of the population in the United States — 1.1 percent compared to 4.9 percent of the Canadian population — more research has been conducted on the experience of American Muslims in healthcare settings compared to Canadian Muslims.

The smallest Canadian study surveyed included only six participants, and the largest had 450 participants, underscoring the need for more Canadian data on the subject.

Also, a poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute earlier this month showed that 50 percent of Canadians say the country has a problem with Islamophobia, while the other 50 percent say it does not. Those most likely to view Islam negatively were the most likely to say Canada does not have an Islamophobia problem.

Experts said that combating Islamophobia is only possible through sufficient research to assess the issue.

A group of pediatricians who formed an anti-racism alliance at McMaster Children's Hospital in response to this work stated that it is important to meet the "increasing needs of those facing racism and hatred from Islamophobia through developing unified resources, processes, and policies."

MACC hopes that, with support from federal and provincial governments, they can conduct more health equity research to create a better picture of the experiences of visible minority women and immigrants in Canada, including children.