Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Mar;57(1):59-68.
doi: 10.1177/08445621241247865. Epub 2024 Apr 22.

Anti-Black Medical Gaslighting in Healthcare: Experiences of Black Women in Canada

Priscilla N Boakye  1 , Nadia Prendergast  1 , Annette Bailey  1 , McCleod Sharon  1 , Bahareh Bandari  1 , Awura-Ama Odutayo  1 , Eugenia Anane Brown  2
Affiliations

Anti-Black Medical Gaslighting in Healthcare: Experiences of Black Women in Canada

Priscilla N Boakye et al. Can J Nurs Res. 2025 Mar.

Abstract

BackgroundStereotype about Black people contribute to nurses and healthcare providers gaslighting and dismissing of their health concerns. Despite the popularity of the term medical gaslighting in mainstream literature, few studies have explored the experiences of Black women during pregnancy and childbirth.PurposeThis paper aims to provide an in-depth insight into Black women's experiences of anti-Black medical gaslighting when accessing care during pregnancy and childbirth.MethodsUtilizing qualitative methods, we conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with Black women in the Greater Toronto Area. We used thematic analysis to ground the data analysis and to generate insight into Black women's experiences.ResultsThree overarching themes: 1) Not Being Understood: Privileging of Medical Knowledge Contributing to the Downplaying of Health Concerns, 2) Not Being Believed: Stereotypes Contributing to Dismissive Healthcare Encounters and 3) Listen to Us: Turning off the Cycle of Medical Gaslighting. These themes highlight ways anti-Black medical gaslighting manifests in Black women's healthcare encounters to create differential access to treatment and care.ConclusionsAnti-Black medical gaslighting contributes to differential access to treatment and care. Improving equitable access to treatment and care must involve addressing structural and epistemic biases in healthcare and fostering a culture of listening to humanize the experience of illness.

Keywords: Anti-Black medical gaslighting; Black women; differential treatment; dismissive encounters; stereotype.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Thematic representation of AMG.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Amutah C., Greenidge K., Mante A., Munyikwa M., Surya S. L., Higginbotham E., Jones D. S., Lavizzo-Mourey R., Roberts D., Tsai J., Aysola J. (2021). Misrepresenting race - the role of medical schools in propagating physician bias. New England Journal of Medicine, 384(9), 872–878. 10.1056/NEJMms2025768 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baker R. B., Washington H. A., Olakanmi O., Savitt T. L., Jacobs E. A., Hoover E., Wynia M. K. (2008). African American physicians and organized medicine, 1846-1968: Origins of a racial divide. JAMA, 300(3), 306–313. 10.1001/jama.300.3.306 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Boakye P. N., Prendergast N. (2024). “There is nothing to protect us from dying”: Black women's perceived sense of safety accessing pregnancy and intrapartum care. Nursing Inquiry, e12638. Advance online publication. 10.1111/nin.12638 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Boakye P. N., Prendergast N., Bandari B., Anane Brown E., Odutayo A. A., Salami S. (2023). Obstetric racism and perceived quality of maternity care in Canada: Voices of Black women. Women's Health, 19, 1–13. 10.1177/17455057231199651 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boylorn R. M. (2008). As seen on TV: An autoethnographic reflection on race and reality television. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 25(4), 413–433. 10.1080/15295030802327758 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources