Health Equity and Immigrant Populations: A Literature Review
Disciplines
Social Work
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Objective: Immigrants across the U.S. face many challenges when migrating, including achieving health equity. This literature review is focused on identifying patterns of health disparity among immigrant communities and making recommendations for policy and practice.
Methods: Utilizing the following keywords: health equity, health disparity, immigrant, immigration, community and individual wellbeing, health equity framework, Latino, Asian, refugee, and undocumented communities within EBSCO Host Databases resulted in 56 articles that were published between 2002-2019. For the purposes of this paper, I examine the first decade (2002 to 2011) of sources, which equal 13 articles on the subject. The analysis of the articles was completed by using a literature review matrix.
Results: Studies have shown that it is difficult for Hispanic and Asian immigrants to obtain health insurance. Among immigrant populations, there is also widespread lack of preventative and chronic health information. The most notable barriers are language differences, availability of health services, and the mounting costs for health care. These articles collectively demonstrated the important role one’s immigration status and socioeconomic status have in determining one’s health coverage.
Conclusions:
This literature review is part of a larger data-gathering project. The information obtained from this process, will not only inform a conceptual paper, but also how best to approach a community-based participatory research initiative to understand the health priorities of immigrant communities. Our aim is to make recommendations for policy and practice, which will inform the creation of a grant-funded Train-the-Trainer Program to improve health equity efforts among immigrant populations.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
WCHHS - Social Work and Human Services
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Darlene Rodriguez
Health Equity and Immigrant Populations: A Literature Review
Objective: Immigrants across the U.S. face many challenges when migrating, including achieving health equity. This literature review is focused on identifying patterns of health disparity among immigrant communities and making recommendations for policy and practice.
Methods: Utilizing the following keywords: health equity, health disparity, immigrant, immigration, community and individual wellbeing, health equity framework, Latino, Asian, refugee, and undocumented communities within EBSCO Host Databases resulted in 56 articles that were published between 2002-2019. For the purposes of this paper, I examine the first decade (2002 to 2011) of sources, which equal 13 articles on the subject. The analysis of the articles was completed by using a literature review matrix.
Results: Studies have shown that it is difficult for Hispanic and Asian immigrants to obtain health insurance. Among immigrant populations, there is also widespread lack of preventative and chronic health information. The most notable barriers are language differences, availability of health services, and the mounting costs for health care. These articles collectively demonstrated the important role one’s immigration status and socioeconomic status have in determining one’s health coverage.
Conclusions:
This literature review is part of a larger data-gathering project. The information obtained from this process, will not only inform a conceptual paper, but also how best to approach a community-based participatory research initiative to understand the health priorities of immigrant communities. Our aim is to make recommendations for policy and practice, which will inform the creation of a grant-funded Train-the-Trainer Program to improve health equity efforts among immigrant populations.