Immigration as a Social Determinant of Health


Book Description

Since 1965 the foreign-born population of the United States has swelled from 9.6 million or 5 percent of the population to 45 million or 14 percent in 2015. Today, about one-quarter of the U.S. population consists of immigrants or the children of immigrants. Given the sizable representation of immigrants in the U.S. population, their health is a major influence on the health of the population as a whole. On average, immigrants are healthier than native-born Americans. Yet, immigrants also are subject to the systematic marginalization and discrimination that often lead to the creation of health disparities. To explore the link between immigration and health disparities, the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity held a workshop in Oakland, California, on November 28, 2017. This summary of that workshop highlights the presentations and discussions of the workshop.







Bridging the Gap


Book Description

Immigrants living in US cities face myriad obstacles to accessing quality health care. This inequitable access to care is compounded by the risk of chronic disease accompanying the stress, strain, and lifestyle changes that can come with life in a new country. Bridging the Gap details the role, lessons, and effectiveness of community health workers (CHWs) in bringing health care to underserved immigrant communities. Combining education, advocacy, and local cultural acumen, CHWs have proven successful in the United States and abroad, improving community health and establishing an evidence base for how CHW programs can work for immigrants. Based on a decade of in-depth evaluations from several immigrant health programs in New York City with complementary interviews with dozens of immigrants and CHWs, Bridging the Gap offers insights into how CHWs help immigrants overcome the obstacles to health care. The authors carefully distill first-hand lessons into recommendations for best practices in developing and utilizing effective CHW programs--insights that will be immediately useful to any community group, municipal agency, or health care organization. Bridging the Gap provides a workable antidote to the seemingly intractable problems faced by cities everywhere in the pursuit of maintaining and maximizing immigrant health. It is a hugely valuable entry in burgeoning field that will be central to the next century of urban public health.







Bridging the Gap


Book Description

Bridging the Gap offers insights into how community health workers (CHWs) help immigrants overcome the obstacles to health care.




Handbook of Immigrant Health


Book Description

Here is the first comprehensive cross-disciplinary work to examine the current health situation of our immigrants, successfully integrating the vast literature of diverse fields -- epidemiology, health services research, anthropology, law, medicine, social work, health promotion, and bioethics -- to explore the richness and diversity of the immigrant population from a culturally-sensitive perspective. This unequalled resource examines methodological issues, issues in clinical care and research, health and disease in specific immigrant populations, patterns of specific diseases in immigrant groups in the US, and conclusive insight towards the future. Complete with 73 illustrations, this singular book is the blueprint for where we must go in the future.




Mental Health Practice with Immigrant and Refugee Youth


Book Description

This book provides a framework to guide mental health providers who work with refugees and immigrants. Nearly 70 million people today are refugees or forcibly-displaced migrants. More than half of them are children suffering from the effects of dislocation and violence. The authors describe the unique needs and challenges of serving these populations, and offer concrete steps for providing evidence-based, culturally-responsive care. Using the socioecological model, the authors conceptualize the developing child as living within concentric circles that include family, school, neighborhood, and society, embedded within a cultural context. Mental health providers identify and provide targeted support to combat disruptions within any or all of these ecological layers. Chapters examine the complex ways in which culture impacts the refugee experience, barriers to engagement in mental health practice and strategies for overcoming them, assessment, collaborative and integrated mental health interventions, and efforts to increase resilience in children, families, and communities. The book is an essential guide for mental health providers, and all who seek to help children in need.




Immigration as a Social Determinant of Health


Book Description

Since 1965 the foreign-born population of the United States has swelled from 9.6 million or 5 percent of the population to 45 million or 14 percent in 2015. Today, about one-quarter of the U.S. population consists of immigrants or the children of immigrants. Given the sizable representation of immigrants in the U.S. population, their health is a major influence on the health of the population as a whole. On average, immigrants are healthier than native-born Americans. Yet, immigrants also are subject to the systematic marginalization and discrimination that often lead to the creation of health disparities. To explore the link between immigration and health disparities, the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity held a workshop in Oakland, California, on November 28, 2017. This summary of that workshop highlights the presentations and discussions of the workshop.




Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life


Book Description

In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good-or equally poor-health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.




Immigrant Health and the Community (Classic Reprint)


Book Description

Excerpt from Immigrant Health and the Community The material in this volume was gathered by the Division of Health Standards and Care of Studies in Methods of Americanization. Americanization in this study has been considered as the union of native and foreign born in all the most fundamental relationships and activities of our national life. For Americanization is the uniting of new with native-born Americans in fuller common understanding and appreciation to secure by means of self-government the highest welfare of all. Such Americanization should perpetuate no unchangeable political, domestic, and economic regime delivered once for all to the fathers, but a growing and broadening national life, inclusive of the best wherever found. With all our rich heritages, Americanism will develop best through a mutual giving and taking of contributions from both newer and older Americans in the interest of the commonweal. This study has followed such an understanding of Americanization. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.