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Background and Purpose: Black African immigrants, which includes Ghanaian immigrants, experience discrimination in various forms in the United States. While research on African immigrant experiences of discrimination is very scanty, studies on Ghanaian immigrants’ experience of discrimination in employment and healthcare in the United States are at the bare minimum. This study is, therefore, important in contributing to filling the gap in the research by exploring the experiences of discrimination and racism in the workplace and the healthcare system among the Black African Immigrant population using the Ghanaian Americans sample. The study also explored the population's trust in the medical system in the United States and the factors that influence the population’s preferences in the choice of medical service providers. Method: The study adopted a qualitative design with a phenomenological approach. The participants were recruited from the Ghanaian American population, a subgroup of Black African immigrants, in New York City using a purposeful, convenient sampling strategy. Seven individuals were interviewed for the study using a semi-structured interview guide developed by the researcher. The data analysis involved a combination of semantic and latent coding and theming. The analysis was predominantly inductive, with the coding and themes guided by the meaning derived from the responses rather than a pre-conceived theory or framework. Findings: The findings show that accent is the leading immigrant identifier for Black African immigrants. The findings also indicate that while Ghanaian Americans experience discrimination in the workplace and employment, they experience no discrimination in the medical system and have high confidence in the medical system in the United States. This suggests that discrimination experiences can be an issue specific to Ghanaian Americans, and the population can experience discrimination in one aspect of their life while having a completely different experience in other aspects of their life. The findings further show that the doctor's competence is paramount for Ghanaian Americans when choosing doctors. However, they would prefer a competent doctor of the same culture as them to enhance communication and understanding between them and the healthcare provider about their health issues.
Philip Kwasi Elike (Wed,) studied this question.