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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Stuart Lustig, MD, MPH¹, Sarah Kureshi, BS², Kevin Delucchi, PhD¹, Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD³, and Samantha Morse, BA³. (1) University of California Department of Psychiatry, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, Division of Child Psychiatry, 401 Parnassus Ave, Box 0984-F, San Francisco, CA 94143, 415-476-7500, lustig@tch.harvard.edu, (2) Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, (3) Physicians for Human Rights, 2 Arrow Street, Suite 301, Cambridge, MA 02138

Background: Asylum seekers have varying rates of success of their application. Methods: We compared the asylum grant rate among U.S. asylum seekers who received medical evaluations between 2000-2004 from a human rights organization, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), with rates among asylum seekers who do not receive such evaluations from PHR. We analyzed demographic and case-specific information including age, sex, country of origin, English language ability, region of the U.S. in which adjudication occurred, whether legal representation was pro bono, type of evaluation, provision of oral court testimony, and whether asylum seekers were in detention. Results: Between 2000 and 2004, 1663 asylum seekers received medical evaluations from PHR; the adjudication status (either granted or denied) was determined in 746 cases at the time of the study. Of these cases, 89% were granted asylum, compared to the national average of approximately 37.5% among U.S. asylum seekers who do not receive PHR evaluations. Asylum applicants who had been detained in the United States had higher rates of denials than those who had not been detained (chi-square test = 38.8, p < 0.0001). Asylum applicants who paid full fee for legal representation were less likely than those receiving reduced-fee or pro bono evaluations to be granted asylum (OR 2.58, chi-square test 8.4, p = 0.01) than those who were charged for legal representation. Conclusions: Medical evaluations may play a role in the adjudications of asylum cases when torture and ill treatment are alleged.

Learning Objectives:

• To learn about the role of medical evaluations in the adjudication of asylum cases.

Keywords: Human Rights, Refugees

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation