Immigration Status as a Social Determinant of Health During Covid-19
The following is an excerpt of our general audience summary article, “Immigration Status as a Social Determinant of Health During Covid-19,” published October 29, 2021, in Public Health Post from Boston University School of Public Health, and based on our peer-reviewed article entitled “Immigration Status as a Health Care Barrier in the USA during COVID-19,” published online in March 2021 in the Journal of Migration and Health, by Jessica Hill, Darlene Xiomara Rodriguez, and Paul N. McDaniel.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has influenced immigrant health in the United States in a variety of ways. Specific to migration into the US, from October 2020-August 2021, the government used public health orders to expel over 900,000 migrants seeking entry into the country. Such practices received heightened national attention this fall when the government expelled thousands of Haitian migrants who had traveled to the border between the US and Mexico without providing them the opportunity to claim asylum. Additionally, immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) experienced heightened risk for Covid-19 while in custody. These measures have been critiqued by scholars and activists for restricting migrants’ movement and denying them legal processes.
While these actions raise important questions regarding Covid-19 and its impact on immigration, earlier this year our research team [Jessica Hill, Darlene Xiomara Rodriguez, and Paul N. McDaniel] published a concept paper that explored immigration status as a social determinant of health for immigrants already living in the US. We considered how several federal policies may have created barriers to health care access for immigrants and their families during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continue reading our full article here on Public Health Post from Boston University School of Public Health.
Originally published at https://www.publichealthpost.org on October 29, 2021.
