Research demonstrated that women of minority groups are among the ones hardest hit when it comes to healthcare access due to issues such as gender, cultural, and linguistic discrimination. This study's purpose was to identify such disadvantages and their underlying discriminating structures and processes for Latina women in a local context. In order to identify barriers and their underlying structures, social indicators were formulated that included: infrastructure, profession and education, immigration and health policies, health insurance, and culture and language. The theoretical perspectives included Critical Theory and Feminist Theory, which provided a framework to identify oppressive structures and processes.

Three methodologies were utilized to collect data: community mapping, focus groups and interviews, and a survey. The maps provided an overview on spatial issues for Latinas, such as their location in the county and the distance to service providers. The survey captured a small sample of Latinas and mainly represented patterns of barriers that were experienced most often due to low socioeconomic status. The focus groups and interviews represented the voices of service providers in the community about the barriers for Latina women. The results from the qualitative data, combined with the results from the other two methods presented the discussed indicators as barriers for Latinas in Louisville. The analyses also showed that these barriers were infiltrated by systems of domination (ethnicity and language, gender, citizenship/nationality, and socioeconomic status) and types of oppression (powerlessness, marginalization, exploitation, and cultural imperialism).

The policy level was also discussed by utilizing concepts of Critical Theory. It was argued that modern law, including healthcare and immigration policies, lack the moral foundations that would justify the right to healthcare. The human rights were utilized as moral foundation to identify access barriers. The integration of the theoretical perspectives and the human rights made way for reflecting on the identified barriers from various viewpoints and to emphasize that the impact of barriers varies between different social groups. In the end, recommendations, gathered throughout the qualitative data collection, were discussed to demonstrate how social change could be implemented locally.