REDUCING HEART HEALTH DISPARITIES: A CULTURE-CENTERED APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING HEART HEALTH MEANINGS AMONG LOW-INCOME MALAY COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This dissertation unpacks the reading of heart health from the lens of communities residing in the margins. In recognizing the marginality of low-income Malays in Singapore, this study sets out to hear how the community shapes their meanings of heart health in relation to the context of disenfranchisement they face. This project is, therefore, focused on how the peripheries talk back in localizing their articulations of heart health while residing in poverty. The vocalizations of heart health by community members foregrounds their interpretations of cardiovascular risks that remain absent in the mainstream discourses. The study unpacks the CVD burden on the community as a health injustice, reading structurally the limited access low-income Malay families have in achieving heart health equity.