Immigrant Communities and COVID-19: Strengthening the Public Health Response

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the many broken fragments of US health care and social service systems, reinforcing extant health and socioeconomic inequities faced by structurally marginalized immigrant communities. Throughout the pandemic, even during the most critical period of rising cases in different epicenters, immigrants continued to work in high-risk-exposure environments while simultaneously having less access to health care and economic relief and facing discrimination. We describe systemic factors that have adversely affected low-income immigrants, including limiting their work opportunities to essential jobs, living in substandard housing conditions that do not allow for social distancing or space to safely isolate from others in the household, and policies that discourage access to public resources that are available to them or that make resources completely inaccessible. We demonstrate that the current public health infrastructure has not improved health care access or linkages to necessary services, treatments, or culturally competent health care providers, and we provide suggestions for how the Public Health 3.0 framework could advance this. We recommend the following strategies to improve the Public Health 3.0 public health infrastructure and mitigate widening disparities: (1) address the social determinants of health, (2) broaden engagement with stakeholders across multiple sectors, and (3) develop appropriate tools and technologies. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(S3):S224–S231. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306433 )

Differences in Mental Health Status Among Asian Americans During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from the Health, Ethnicity, and Pandemic Study

“… 7 These differences in mental health impacts can be attributable to the combined effects of an increase in racial discrimination, social isolation, and already existing underutilization of mental health care among these vulnerable groups across the United States. 4 , 6 , 7 , 9 …”

Healthcare worker perspectives on COVID-19 vaccines: Implications for increasing vaccine acceptance among healthcare workers and patients

“… [2] Certain groups have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, such as some refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities. [3] , [4] , [5] These communities may experience additional barriers (or opportunities) to vaccines and healthcare such as cultural beliefs and knowledge, insurance coverage, transportation access, ability to miss work (e.g. be fired for missing a single day), language barriers, and lack of trust (especially of government and public health organizations).…”

Evaluating spatial accessibility to COVID-19 vaccine resources in diversely populated counties in the United States

“…The existence of disparities in COVID-19 infections and mortality between racial groups in the US has been widely documented (11)(12)(13)(14). It calls for actions in various aspects of public health response from data collection to resource allocation in order to avoid further propagating the inequities (12).…”