Unintentional Home Injuries: Community-Based Participatory Research among Afghan Immigrants and Refugees in British
Umerdad Khudadad1, Audrey R Giles2, Ian Pike3,4
1School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. ukhud052@uottawa.ca.
Background:
Unintentional home injuries are a major public health burden in Canada, with racialized and newcomer communities experiencing disproportionate risk. However, limited research has examined the lived experiences and structural determinants of home-injury risks within these populations. Authors in this study examined how recent Afghan immigrants and refugees in Vancouver, British Columbia, experience and navigate home-injury risks within resettlement contexts.
Methods:
Using a community-based participatory research approach, we partnered with a Community Advisory Board, who were Afghan newcomers to Vancouver, to guide the research process. We conducted nine semi-structured interviews and one focus group (n=eight) with Afghan newcomers (arrived in Canada since 2019). We collected data in the Dari language and translated them into English. We analyzed the data using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis, guided by an intersectional theory.
Results:
Four themes illustrated home injury experiences as a socially negotiated process shaped by vulnerability and resilience: (1) structural vulnerability, wherein housing precarity, linguistic exclusion, and institutional mistrust compounded home injury risks; (2) gendered and intergenerational home safety burden, with women and daughters disproportionately responsible for prevention, interpretation, and caregiving; (3) cultural adaptation and embodied learning, as participants learned unfamiliar safety technologies through lived experience; and (4) community networks and resilience as protective infrastructure, functioning as trusted, language-congruent channels for home safety knowledge and support.
Conclusion:
Preventing home injuries among Afghan newcomers to Vancouver requires moving beyond individual-level behaviour change toward structural, equity-driven interventions that integrate culturally safe, community-partnered education with intersectoral action across housing, settlement, health, and social services.
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