Modern challenges to immigrants' health and health care access

Immigration in the United States has changed much over the past eight years and so has the life of immigrants. Today, immigrants face many challenges and barriers that impact their health and access to health care services.

In order to develop and implement public health interventions in support of immigrant communities, we must first understand what it means to be an immigrant in this modern age and come to understand the barriers they face. What doers it mean for someone to have to live and work without having identification? How do people live and work without an ATM card and without the possibility of establishing credit. What does it mean when you cannot have a lease or a telephone account or a utility service in your own name? How can you be healthy when you live in constant fear of government and the police? How can people be healthy when they are not sure if they will return home to their families every day they head out to work? How does someone even approach a foreign and unknown healthcare system when in need of services?

These questions and many others will be addressed in order to help public health professionals, government funders and program developers understand the particular conditions faced by today's immigrants and how we can develop programs that address these unique conditions.