Oral

Refugees more often than not come from war torn countries and have faced trauma and other harrowing accounts of war before relocating to their new countries. Refugees are confronted with issues relating to immigration, cultural adjustment, educational and language barriers, pressures from relatives and sometimes spouses and children left in their countries of origin, how to get and hold on to jobs in their new environment and sometimes how to raise their children in a different environment totally different from how they were raised. Thus issues such as mental health, the likelihood of never seeing their home country again which is forced on them because of the circumstances in their country are daily unspoken challenges. Additionally, issues of cost of living and care, disease causation, health seeking behavior for diseases that are amenable to medical intervention when detected early by screening, health insurance coverage and its impact on seeking care, take on their own tolls. These issues are very challenging to the day to day living of the refugees.

Session Objectives: By the end of this session, participants will be able to: 1. Describe methods to develop culturally-specific patient education materials for Africa refugee immigrant population. 2. Describe approaches to mental health care that are consistent with the perspectives and cultures of African refugees from war-torn countries. 3. Recognize the unique challenges refugee and immigrant women affected by FGC face in the US health system and barriers faced by U.S. providers while providing care to the affected women. 4. Recognize the importance of a social justice/human rights approach to promoting the mental health of African refugees. 5. Identify the unique challenges associated with treating refugee patients and the need for emergency dental care training within refugee camp environments.