Romani maternal and child health: moving from documenting disparities to testing progress and interventions to achieve equity

Excerpt

I first became aware of the deplorable health disadvantage of Roma in 2006. I was working on a study that demonstrated the harmful effects of lead exposure from a smelter in Kosovo on childhood development. I came across the New York Times article “Displaced Gypsies at Risk From Lead in Kosovo Camps” that Romani children were severely sickened by the same lead smelter, in part due to political inaction to resolve the crisis. I quickly penned a Letter to the Editor expressing my outrage. Thirteen years later, news headlines now often feature “Roma” instead of the pejorative term “Gypsy,” a marker of some progress in international awareness of Roma identity and human rights. However, where have we come in advancing Romani maternal and child health, and what is next? We now have better documentation of the health disadvantage of Romani women and children, but we lack strategies to measure progress and evidence of successful interventions to meet the goal of health equity. …