The meanings of heart health among low-income Malay women in Singapore: narratives of food insecurity, caregiving stressors, and shame

ABSTRACT In seeking ground-up understandings of heart health disparities facing low-income Malay women in Singapore, this paper locates their meanings of heart health. Their health narratives reveal the insidious communicative and structural barriers women face. The findings show how shame, conceptualized as malu, remains a barrier to accessing health and help structures. Everyday food insecurity and stress from caregiving while in impoverishment also undermine heart health equity. The intersections of gender and class reveal how caregiving can have a crippling effect on health outcomes in the low-income context. Low-income women face multiple burdens that impede heart health care and management. Women's heart health interventions should heed how a culture of shame and structural manifestations of stress and food insecurity prevent women in low-income settings from seeking equitable health opportunities.