Pregnant immigrant women in Paris and the boundaries of new public health

This research examines the geographies of maternal health among pregnant immigrant women and their experiences with new public health. I argue that geographers of new public health need to be mindful of the ways in which they construct and reproduce associations of health, place, and medicine. Although new public health suggests an expanded view of the concept of health, public health texts and resources reinforce the perception that health promotion and disease prevention take place within distinctly defined geographies. In light of this problematic privileging of clinics and hospitals in particular with health care and disease prevention, I argue the need to acknowledge more fully the manner in which broad experiences reveal the ways in which geographies of health are bounded through new public health discourse. In order to explicate my thesis, I focus on a case study of the experiences of pregnant immigrant women living in the Paris banlieues.