Vulnerable Immigrant Populations in the New York Metropolitan Area and COVID-19: Lessons Learned in the Epicenter of the Crisis

Abstract

The epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis since March 17, 2020—the New York metropolitan area—is home to some of the largest Latino immigrant communities in the nation. These communities have long faced barriers to health care access, challenges due to immigration status, and financial and labor instability. The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated these existing issues in a vulnerable, often forgotten, immigrant community. It has been challenging for this population to access public information regarding COVID-19 testing, treatment, and assistance programs because this information has seldom been disseminated in Spanish and even less frequently in Portuguese. While long-term solutions will require time and changes to policy, some short-term measures can mitigate the current situation. The authors share their experience from Newark, New Jersey, where partnerships of public and private community-based organizations (CBOs) have been successful in establishing trust between the health care system and a fearful Latino community. The Ironbound Initiative, a student group at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey, has partnered with Mantena Global Care, a Brazilian CBO in Newark, to facilitate dissemination of COVID-19–relevant information. Medical student volunteers, removed from their clinical duties, serve as virtual patient navigators, using social media to reach community members with the goals of improving awareness of precautions to take during the pandemic and of increasing access to needed medical care. These students have collaborated with colleagues in other disciplines to provide necessary legal guidance to community members fearful of seeking care because of their immigration status. The authors urge other academic institutions across the country to recruit multidisciplinary teams of medical, health professions, and law students invested in their local communities and to empower students to partner with CBOs, immigrant community leaders, faith-based organizations, hospitals, and local authorities to support these vulnerable communities during this crisis.

Clinical outcomes and risk factors for COVID-19 among migrant populations in high-income countries: A systematic review

“…Various federal policies deter migrants from health seeking ( Page et al, 2020 , Capps R, Gelatt, 2020 , Bakhiet et al 2020 , Zelaya et al 2020 ). For example, undocumented migrants in the US are ineligible for federally funded healthcare programmes such as Medicare and Medicaid ( Wilson et al, 2020 ), and the ‘public charge’ rule introduced in February 2020 makes migrants who receive a broad range of cash and noncash benefits ineligible to apply for citizenship and residency ( Langellier, 2020 , Behbahani et al, 2020 ), deterring treatment-seeking, particularly so in jobs that are often criminalised such as sex work ( Lam, 2020 ). US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have continued in migrant communities over lockdown, and have further damaged trust and deterred migrants from testing and treatment ( Lopez and Holmes, 2020 ).…”

Clinical outcomes and risk factors for COVID-19 among migrant populations in high-income countries: a systematic review

“…Various federal policies deter migrants from health seeking (101–104). For example, undocumented migrants in the US are ineligible for federally funded healthcare programmes such as Medicare and Medicaid (105), and the ‘public charge’ rule introduced in February 2020 makes migrants who receive a broad range of cash and noncash benefits ineligible to apply for citizenship and residency (106, 107), deterring treatment-seeking, particularly so in jobs that are often criminalised such as sex work (108). US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have continued in migrant communities over lockdown, and have further damaged trust and deterred migrants from testing and treatment (109).…”

Building trust in American hospital-community development projects: a scoping review

“…In ‘Vulnerable Immigrant Populations in the New York Metropolitan Area and COVID-19: Lessons Learned in the Epicenter of the Crisis,’ Behbahani et al, highlight the importance of partnership in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when communities may express fear or anxiety related to hospitals as spaces where they may get sick, is likely higher than it has ever been in recent history [ 9 ]. Although fear about illness and contagion is qualitatively different than the trust issues we address in this article, the resulting avoidance and downstream effects may be similar.…”