Investigating the Refugee Health Disadvantage Among the U.S. Immigrant Population

Long-Term Physical Health Outcomes of Resettled Refugee Populations in the United States: A Scoping Review

“…Adults The majority of the articles on refugee adult populations reported chronic disease outcomes. Refugee adults had a higher prevalence (21-25%) and up to 2 times the odds of having any chronic condition compared to non-refugee immigrant adults (13-16%) [7,11]. Non-refugee immigrants in these studies denoted individuals who received legal permanent residency (LPR) in the United States, but not via refugee visa.…”

“…Investigations took place across 16 states with the majority taking place in Minnesota (seven articles, 21%); other states included Michigan (4), New York (3), Rhode Island (3), Washington (3), Massachusetts (2), Ohio (2), Pennsylvania (2), Texas (2), California (1), Georgia (1), Idaho (1), Illinois (1), Indiana (1), Kentucky (1), and Oregon (1). Two investigations took place across multiple states [9,10], and 2 investigations analyzed data from the New Immigrant Survey (fielded in 2003), which used a nationally representative sample of refugees and immigrants [7,11]. Most investigations took place in health care settings (23, 67.6%).…”

“…Among the 16 publications looking at physical health outcomes among all resettled refugee populations, 9 articles specific refugee adults as the target population [7,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], and 7 articles specified refugee children [9,[19][20][21][22][23][24]. Most articles did not specify countries of origin, but rather grouped refugee country of origin into geographic regions (e.g., Southeast Asia and Africa).…”

“…However, adults from the Middle East had a higher average baseline BMI of 27.5 kg/m 2 compared to adults from Africa (21.0 kg/ m 2 ) and Southeast Asia (21.8 kg/m 2 ). Compared to nonrefugee immigrant adults, refugees had a greater prevalence of diabetes (5-6% vs. 3-4% for non-refugee immigrant adults) [7,11] and hypertension (12-14% vs. 6-9%) [7,11]. Compared with age-and gender-matched US-born controls, refugees had an increased risk for diabetes (hazard ratio: 2.1; 95% CI 1.3-3.3) [18], with a diabetes incidence rate of 1.94 per 100 person-years (vs. 1.22 per 100 person-years for US-born controls).…”

Traditional Medicine and Help-Seeking Behaviors for Health Problems Among Somali Bantu Refugees Resettled in the United States

“…Health care providers in host countries do not always feel prepared to provide health care to resettled refugee patients (Royer et al, 2020). It is imperative that practitioners provide culturally sensitive care to prevent or ameliorate health disparities based on immigration status (Brach & Fraserirector, 2000; Derose et al, 2007; Reed & Barbosa, 2016; Singh et al, 2013). According to the Office of Minority Health (OMH), culturally sensitive services are those that respond to diverse cultural health beliefs and practices, and address linguistic and other communication needs (OMH, 2013).…”