Latino Immigration

Immigration of Latinos to the United States has involved several issues about the politics of ethnicity and discrimination of the refugees (Gutiérrez, 2016). By studying the history of immigration and the issues surrounding it, the immigration of Latinos and their lives in the United States is clearly understood. Some of the common questions surrounding immigration to the United States include the immigration and immigrant policies, the refugee status and asylum, globalization and immigration, the border and the immigrant right movement. The Latino population in American society comprises of diverse communities and ethnics within the United States. For instance, the significant components of the Latino population include Mexican Americans comprising of 63% of the Latinos, Mainland Puerto Ricans making up to 9.2% of the Latinos and the Cubans constituting of 3.5%. Salvadorans is another largest population making up the Latinos (Gutiérrez, 2016). The Salvadorans is a combination of Central and South America making up to 3.3% of the population. The immigration and immigration policies in the United States are the drivers influencing the Latino health disparities.

Apart from understanding that Latinos are migrants to the United States, the article Abraído-Lanza, Echeverría & Flórez (2016) has suggested that Latino population in America demonstrates a unique chance in the comprehension of the nexus between the acculturation, health, and immigration. The most significant number of the work focuses on the function of the acculturation that is aimed at shaping health in the Latino Americans. But acculturation investigation presents a crossroad outcome for advancing a complicated nuanced as well as a sophisticated strategy that addresses the comprehensive process through which extensive social determinant that influences the perspective of health.

The research held by Calvo (2015) shows the community context of the Latinos in the neighborhood and its relation to population health. The Latinos as the immigrant population in the United States are vulnerable to patterns of great health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cardiovascular risk factors. In America, almost 50% of the Latinos live in around ten metropolitan regions of the United States. In the majority of these regions, the Latino families live in poor neighborhoods compared to the white counterparts at every level of the socioeconomic income (Abraído-Lanza, Echeverría & Flórez, 2016).

From the ancient times, the Latino immigrants were perceived to be poorly protected against social justice. The Latinos experience poor health and social amenities supply. This has been a stereotype about the Latinos in the United States. However, the article by Philbin, Flake, Hatzenbuehler & Hirsch (2018) has refuted such claims in contemporary American society. The transnationalism and the national health policies have improved the health conditions of the Latinos immigrants in the United States. From the point of view, the acculturation and health concerns within the Latino populations have discriminatively refused to recognize the function and the significance of the globalization as well as national policies; factors that encourage health. This is done at the expense of the demand of conceptualizing and capturing transformations in the Latino populations about health as they take shape across the geographic borders (transnationalism). Therefore, the myths that the social justice discriminates Latino Americans is a self-making calamity.

The article Philbin, Flake, Hatzenbuehler & Hirsch (2018) presents new information concerning Latino immigration and the state of the health. The state-level immigration along with the immigrant-focused programs have a direct influence on Latino health. Some policies are aimed at documented and some aimed at undocumented Latino Immigrants. Polices that are focused at the undocumented immigrants overcrowding affects every Latino. The state-level immigration policies that are formulated affects the health of the Latinos through four main perspectives; racism, accessibility of the healthcare institutions, health care services, and material goods. Based on the social determinants of the Latino health perspective, social along with the economic programs and policies are intrinsically health policies. However, considering the research by Calvo (2015) concerning the interaction between the state-level immigration-related policies and the Latino health continuously remain scarce.

There some factors and forces in the social domains such as the health-immigrant policies that oppress the migrants. In the United States, several state-level legislative operations and programs focus on the Immigration and the immigrants. However, these policies and programs have aimed at depriving the Latinos of education, social justice, public health and the benefits of transportation (Abraído-Lanza, Echeverría & Flórez, 2016). However, there are some of the policies that aim at improving the livelihood of the Latinos in the United States. Also, Calvo (2015) claim that health literacy and quality care are factors inhibiting health improvement among Latino immigrants in American society.  Health literacy is significantly important in the navigation of the United States health care systems as well as in the promotion of the mutual understanding in the shared process of decision making between the patients and the health professionals. Latino immigrants have inadequate health literacy compared to other ethnic and racial assortments in the United States.

Social changes, health care strategies and leadership styles have been influential in the improvement of the Latino immigrants in the United States. In contemporary American society, the administrations like the Obama administration have been improving the affordability and accessibility of the health care. The improvement of the health care insurance coverage and regular health care has ever improved population health within all ethnic groups and low socioeconomic groups in the United States. Screening for health literacy has been influential in the increment of the attention paid to the Latino American immigrants’ comprehension about health information in the field of health care. Ultimately, it has contributed to the improvement of the interventions that enhance the quality of care and the health outcomes among the vulnerable groups of the United States such as Latino.

References

Abraído-Lanza, A. F., Echeverría, S. E., & Flórez, K. R. (2016). Latino immigrants, acculturation, and health: Promising new directions in research. Annual Review of Public Health, 37, 219-236.

Calvo, R. (2015). Health literacy and quality of care among Latino immigrants in the United States. Health & Social Work, 41(1), e44-e51.

Gutiérrez, D. G. (2016). A historical overview of Latino immigration and the demographic transformation of the United States. The new Latino studies reader: A twenty-first-century perspective, 108.

Philbin, M. M., Flake, M., Hatzenbuehler, M. L., & Hirsch, J. S. (2018). State-level immigration and immigrant-focused policies as drivers of Latino health disparities in the United States. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 29-38.