SOC 4005 / SOC 5005 - Refugees and Humanitarianism - Warren

ABSTRACT: Little is known about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and psychological well-being of young people. The aim of this study is to investigate the psychological well-being and changes in the mental-health state of young people living in Austria and Turkey. By using an anonymous online survey, we recruited 1240 people aged 15–25 years from these two countries. We used the “Psychological General Well-being” and a self-created questionnaire to capture individual experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine period. The native Turks indicated higher “anxiety” (ps < 0.010), lower “vitality” (ps < 0.011), and lower “general health” (ps < 0.011) than native Austrians or Austrian migrants and increased “depression” (p = 0.005) and lower “self-control” (p = 0.022), than Austrian migrants. Moreover, 50.9% of native Turks reported a decrease in their mental health status, compared to 31.1% of native Austrians and 23.7% of Austrian migrants. Participants with financial problems (OR = 1.68) and prior mental health problems (i.e., already in treatment by the time of COVID-19, OR = 5.83) reported a higher probability for a worsening in their mental health status. Our results show that the COVID-19 pandemic impaired the psychological well-being and mental health of young people. Especially people in Turkey were most affected, probably due to the stringent policies to fight COVID-19.

ABSTRACT: COVID-19’s emergence carries with it many uncertainties and challenges, including strategies to manage the epidemic. Oman has implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. However, responses to NPIs may be different across different populations within a country with a large number of migrants, such as Oman. This study investigated the different responses to NPIs, and assessed the use of the time-varying reproduction number (Rt) to monitor them.

ABSTRACT: On June 13, 2020, my tio (uncle) passed away as a result of complications caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). He spent his life taking care of his family and, through his work, contributing to the wellness of his community. As an adolescent, my tio emigrated from Mexico to Texas and Florida to work in the agricultural fields. Eventually, my father joined him to work the citrus fields of southwest Florida. For more than 35 years, they worked the fields together. As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, escalated in the United States, their jobs positioned them as frontline workers, in charge of feeding the country.

ABSTRACT: In sum, our preliminary findings suggest that Italian foreign workers living in the UAE might be at heightened risk for PTSD symptoms, depression and anxiety. The study has, of course, some notable limitations, including a small and mostly female sample and the use of non-probability sampling, limiting the generalizability of the findings. Another limitation is that our data was compared to norms that were not specific for the Italian population or for foreign workers. Despite these limitations, our study provides an early quantitative insight into the psychological challenges besetting foreign worker populations, witnessing the devastation of the pandemic on their home nation from afar. Further investigations are encouraged, focused on larger samples of international foreign workers

ABSTRACT: Several characteristics of refugee and migrant populations make them susceptible to acquire COVID-19. To fully understand the impact of COVID-19 on refugees and migrants in the Americas, it is important to consider the broader geopolitical context and appreciate the differences among migratory groups. There are three migrant groups in the Americas that are particularly susceptible to COVID-19: Central American migrants at the northern Mexico border, Venezuelans within South America, and Haitians in the Dominican Republic. Refugees and displaced migrants are the world’s collective responsibility, and thus, it would be imprudent to displace their care to resource constrained developing nations.

ABSTRACT: One of the biggest threats to humanity are pandemics. In our global society they can rage around the world with an immense toll in terms of human, economic and social impact. Forecasting the spreading of a pandemic is, therefore, paramount in helping governments to enforce a number of social and economic measures, apt at curbing the pandemic and dealing with its aftermath. We demonstrate that the epidemic renormalisation group approach to pandemics provides an effective and simple way to investigate the dynamics of disease transmission and spreading across different regions of the world. The framework also allows for reliable projections on the impact of travel limitations and social distancing measures on global epidemic spread. We test and calibrate it on reported COVID-19 cases while unveiling the mechanism that governs the delay in the relative peaks of newly infected cases among different regions of the globe. We discover that social distancing measures are more effective than travel limitations across borders in delaying the epidemic peak. We further provide the link to compartmental models such as the time-honoured SIR-like models. We also show how to generalise the framework to account for the interactions across several regions of the world, replacing or complementing large scale simulations.

ABSTRACT: This article comprehensively examines international migration trends and policies in light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It begins by reviewing migration developments throughout the past 60 years. It then examines pandemic-related migration trends and policies. It concludes with a series of general observations and insights that should guide local, national, regional, and international policymakers, moving forward.

ABSTRACT: This year, most societies and lives have been transformed by practices to slow the spread of COVID-19. Cities and countries have imposed sweeping stay-at-home orders for residents, quarantining millions of people around the world. Though critical in slowing the spread of the virus, these mitigation measures have been increasingly difficult to implement in refugee communities. The potential consequences of an outbreak within refugee camps would be catastrophic, as evidenced in the Rohingya Refugee Camps in Bangladesh.

ABSTRACT: Health workers and human rights advocates are urging the federal and provincial governments to extend public health insurance to all people living in Canada, regardless of immigration status, as outbreaks of COVID-19 among migrant workers escalate. … Many migrant workers have precarious access to health care and coverage that is dependent on a specific employer. Those laid off for any reason, including due to illness or injury, may lose health coverage or avoid seeking care for fear of being deported.

ABSTRACT: It is crucial to understand how the most vulnerable populations have been impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This paper intends to contextualize the experience of resettled refugees in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, framing the issue for further study as the situation evolves. Based on the experience drawn from the first wave of the pandemic, the findings of this paper suggest that refugees in Canada encounter barriers to healthcare, economic support, education, social support, and border crossing impediments, all of which can have a compounding effect. These findings provide needed information to inform the development of effective policies and strategies to support refugees during health security emergencies in Canada.

ABSTRACT: Racialized inequities are further exacerbated by America’s immigration policies and practices. Together, these dynamics explain the disproportionately higher COVID-19 mortality rates in Black and Latinx communities.

ABSTRACT: In this article, we comment on the experience of the Kovler Center Child Trauma Program (KCCTP)following the March 21, 2020, shelter at home order in Chicago due to COVID-19. The KCCTP is a program of Heartland Alliance International that was founded in 2018 to provide community-based mental health and social services to immigrant and refugee youth and families who have experienced trauma. COVID-19 temporarily closed the doors of the center, suspending provision of in-person services in the community, and the program was forced to become remote overnight. The KCCTP rapidly transitioned to providing accessible information, active outreach, extensive case management, and flexible delivery of teletherapy and online psychosocial support, finding that attending to structural barriers and basic needs was crucial to family engagement and therapeutic success. Ongoing challenges include technological proficiency and access to computers, Internet, and private spaces.

ABSTRACT: Despite the positive response of Colombia's health system to the arrival of Venezuelan migrants, the new challenges that accompany the COVID-19 pandemic have triggered a closed-borders response that runs the risk of encouraging a negative view of migrants and increasing their health risks.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting some important sources of health disparities that assail our society’s most vulnerable people, particularly undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. The focus of this commentary is on uncovering those sources of health disparities and making a call for action.

ABSTRACT: Our commentary aims to show that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing barriers to healthcare in England for ethnic minority and migrant women. We expose how the pandemic has affected the allocation of healthcare resources leading to the prioritisation of COVID-19 patients and suspending the equal access to healthcare services approach. We argue that we must look beyond this disruption in provision by examining existing barriers to access that have been amplified by the pandemic in order to understand the poorer health outcomes for women in ethnic minority and migrant communities. The reflection focuses on racialised medical perceptions, gendered cultural norms including information barriers and stigma, and specific legal barriers.

ABSTRACT: In this commentary to the paper “Ensuring HIV care to undocumented migrants in Israel: a public-private partnership case study” by Chemtob et al. we discuss the role of public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a mechanism for integrating previously excluded groups in public healthcare provision. Drawing on PPP case-studies as well as on Israel’s pandemic preparedness policies during the Covid-19 outbreak, we examine potential implications for the populations in question and for health systems.

In our view, Chemtob et al. describe an exceptional achievement, where a PPP served as a stepping stone for the subsequent integration of irregular migrants’ in publicly funded HIV care. However, we argue that in many other cases PPPs are liable to undermine public healthcare and inclusionary claims. This view is informed by the fundamentally different concepts of healthcare that underlie PPPs and public healthcare provision (namely, health care as a commodity vs. access to healthcare as a right) and existing evidence on PPPs’ role in facilitating welfare retrenchment. In contexts that are dominated by an exclusionary stance toward irregular migrants, such as contemporary Israel, we believe that PPPs will become stopgaps that undermine health rights, rather than a first foot in the door that leads toward equitable provision of healthcare for all.

ABSTRACT: The novel coronavirus pandemic poses unique challenges to forcibly displaced populations around the world. Months into the pandemic, countries are still scrambling to enact policies that mitigate the outbreak and minimize the strain on their health‐care infrastructures and economies. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees continues to work with member states to provide guidance and assistance to those populations protected under their mandate. However, there is great concern regarding the ability to appropriately provide for displaced populations, as they tend to be hosted in areas that lack access to health care and proper hygiene materials. The situation has been exacerbated by the temporary suspension of refugee resettlement across the globe. In the United States, the Trump Administration has responded to the crisis by further eroding refugee and asylum resettlement programs and failing to properly protect the asylum seekers currently being detained. At the local level, resettled refugees and asylees have responded to the unique challenges posed by coronavirus by using their skillsets to provide assistance and services to community members in need. The coronavirus, and the Trump Administration's response, are likely to have long‐term negative impacts on refugee resettlement and asylum programs.

ABSTRACT: While the number of medical human rights programs has increased, there is substantial unmet need for forensic evaluations among asylum seekers throughout the United States. From September 2019 through May 2020, the Mount Sinai Human Rights Program has coordinated pro bono forensic mental health evaluations by telephone or video for individuals seeking protected immigration status who are unable to access in-person services. The national network clinicians conducted 32 forensic evaluations of individuals in eight U.S. states and Mexico seeking immigration relief. Remote forensic services have been a relevant solution for individuals in immigration detention, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: For ‘essential’ blue-collar workers, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated health, social, and economic inequities by race, ethnicity, and immigration status—particularly for Black and Latinx populations. Inequities in COVID-19 infections, illness, and death result from historical and current racist and anti-immigrant policies and practices that affect access to health, social, and economic benefits for minoritized communities.

ABSTRACT: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities house thousands of undocumented immigrants in environments discordant with the public health recommendations to reduce the transmission of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Using ICE detainee population data obtained from the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) website as of March 2, 2020, we implemented a simple stochastic susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered model to estimate the rate of COVID-19 transmission within 111 ICE detention facilities and then examined impacts on regional hospital intensive care unit (ICU) capacity. Models considered three scenarios of transmission (optimistic, moderate, pessimistic) over 30-, 60-, and 90-day time horizons across a range of facility sizes. We found that 72% of individuals are expected to be infected by day 90 under the optimistic scenario (R0 = 2.5), while nearly 100% of individuals are expected to be infected by day 90 under a more pessimistic (R0 = 7) scenario. Although asynchronous outbreaks are more likely, day 90 estimates provide an approximation of total positive cases after all ICE facility outbreaks. We determined that, in the most optimistic scenario, coronavirus outbreaks among a minimum of 65 ICE facilities (59%) would overwhelm ICU beds within a 10-mile radius and outbreaks among a minimum of 8 ICE facilities (7%) would overwhelm local ICU beds within a 50-mile radius over a 90-day period, provided every ICU bed was made available for sick detainees. As policymakers seek to rapidly implement interventions that ensure the continued availability of life-saving medical resources across the USA, they may be overlooking the pressing need to slow the spread of COVID-19 infection in ICE’s detention facilities. Preventing the rapid spread necessitates intervention measures such as granting ICE detainees widespread release from an unsafe environment by returning them to the community.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to control it have taken an unprecedented economic toll globally. Economists warn that the pandemic could plunge the world into a global recession not seen since the Second World War, putting millions at risk of extreme poverty. It is predicted that the number of people experiencing food insecurity will increase by 130 million due to COVID-19. Forcibly displaced people are among those likely to be hit hardest by the impact of the pandemic and the resulting economic downturn. The social and economic consequences of COVID-19 are likely to facilitate greater engagement in transactional sex among displaced people who are already facing hardship and marginalisation.

ABSTRACT: Júnior, Jucier Gonçalves, Jair Paulino De Sales, Marcial Moreno Moreira, Woneska Rodrigues Pinheiro, Carlos Kennedy Tavares Lima, and Modesto Leite Rolim Neto. 2020. "A Crisis within the Crisis: The Mental Health Situation of Refugees in the World during the 2019 Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Outbreak." Psychiatry Research 288: 113000.

ABSTRACT: Born in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on global health and economies have been and continue to be devastating. In Africa, its countries grieve for unprecedented burdens of caseloads and mortality due to COVID-19, the virus responsible for the disease. This narrative review aims to establish the scale of the health and economic crisis wrought by the pandemic in Africa, including its impact on the informal economic sector, projections of the effect on national GDP, as well as its political dimensions.

ABSTRACT: This article provides detailed estimates of foreign-born (immigrant) workers in the United States who are employed in “essential critical infrastructure” sectors, as defined by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (DHS 2020). Building on earlier work by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS), the article offers exhaustive estimates on essential workers on a national level, by state, for large metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), and for smaller communities that heavily rely on immigrant labor. It also reports on these workers by job sector; immigration status; eligibility for tax rebates under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act); and other characteristics.

ABSTRACT: Canada’s safety record during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed longstanding systemic injustices plaguing our society. Knowing that the pandemic and response to it have not affected people equally, we raise the questions: What keeps us safe and who is kept safe during this pandemic? Does policing people who are systematically oppressed and facing multiple survival challenges (only one of which is COVID-19) keep people safe? Who has the privilege of distancing, whether that means access to a home, car or protective supplies, or the ability to work from home? These questions highlight not only pre-existing social and economic inequities, but also setbacks to achieving a socially just pandemic response. As medical and public health professionals and members of the People’s Health Movement, we believe that everyone deserves safety, a foundational determinant of health. In this article, we use an intersectional race, class and gender lens and consider multiple threats to safety to examine safety in the home, in communities and across borders.

ABSTRACT: The health and economic consequences of COVID-19 will be devastatingly widespread, but the populations that will suffer most are those who have experienced longstanding health disparities. For example, emerging evidence strongly suggests that incidence and case fatality rates are higher among Blacks than Whites.1 Immigrants are among the groups most likely to experience disproportionate effects from COVID-19. Unlike race/ ethnicity, however, nativity and citizenship status are not included on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) coronavirus case report form,2 so data regarding testing and spread across immigrant groups are likely to remain scarce. Information from other health and social surveys-including data that I present in Table 1-suggest that noncitizens experience barriers to physical distancing that will place them at high risk of contracting COVID-19 and have high levels of disadvantage that leave them vulnerable to its economic effects. I recommend three policy changes to address the high health and economic risk among noncitizens, goals that are in the best interest of public health and the broader economy. Noncitizens face barriers to physical distancing that leave them at high risk of contracting COVID-19. Compared with US-born citizens, noncitizens live in larger households and in homes with more occupants per bedroom and are more likely to live in multifamily housing structures.Just 57% of noncitizens live in a single-family housing structure, and 22% live in large units with 10 or more families. Noncitizens work in industries and occupations that cannot be performed remotely -data from the February 2020 Current Population Survey show that noncitizens make up 9% of the labor force but 22% of workers in the agricultural industry, 13% in the restaurant industry, 18% of construction workers, and 14% of warehouse workers. As the economy reopens, noncitizens may also experience increased risk related to their commutes to work, because they use public transit at nearly double the rate of US-born noncitizens.

ABSTRACT: The raids, detentions, and deportations conducted by the federal government are putting us all at risk, creating distrust, leading to overcrowding and forced detrimental movement, worsening a shortage of basic health equipment, and adversely affecting the social determinants of health of all. These actions threaten to overwhelm our public health system and fan the flames of the pandemic. As a country, we have a historic opportunity to set our priorities straight. Literally to survive, we must provide necessary equipment to frontline health workers, follow public health recommendations, and stop ICE raids, detentions, and deportations. Our lives and our society depend on it.

ABSTRACT: Immigration detention centers are densely populated facilities in which restrictive conditions limit detainees’ abilities to engage in social distancing or hygiene practices designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. With tens of thousands of adults and children in more than 200 immigration detention centers across the United States, immigration detention centers are likely to experience COVID-19 outbreaks and add substantially to the population of those infected.

ABSTRACT: ‘I am terrified of getting the coronavirus.’ ‘No one can social distance.’ ‘The guards have masks, but we don’t.’ This is what migrants in detention are telling their attorneys in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. They’re in grave danger, and they are reaching out for help. They live in overcrowded, unsanitary facilities and the desperation they feel has only increased along with the numbers of those testing positive. … Many asylum seekers who enter the country are placed in carceral settings while awaiting their immigration hearings. They are not criminals, but because of our government’s harsh policies, they are held in prison-like facilities. In the past, asylum seekers often awaited adjudication while living in the community, and the vast majority—greater than 90% by some counts1—complied with legal requirements as their cases were evaluated. In the last three years, the Trump administration has prioritized detention of asylum seekers and the number of individuals in immigration detention has increased significantly—right now, approximately 30,000 people are currently being held in immigration detention facilities in the USA.

ABSTRACT: Individuals in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention are at risk from serious consequences resulting from the rapid spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and inadequate access to appropriate medical care. This situation represents a moral and public health imperative for rapid action by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to mitigate the human toll of the pandemic.

ABSTRACT: Little is known about the relationship between the COVID-19 and tuberculosis (TB). The aim of this study is to describe a group of patients who died with TB (active disease or sequelae) and COVID-19 in two cohorts. … Data from 49 consecutive cases in 8 countries (cohort A) and 20 hospitalised patients with TB and COVID-19 (cohort B) were analysed and patients who died were described. Demographic and clinical variables were retrospectively collected, including co-morbidities and risk factors for TB and COVID-19 mortality.

ABSTRACT: As the world struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, different countries are increasingly focused on the protection of their citizens and are neglecting their obligations and commitments to protecting asylum seekers, refugees and foreign-born migrants living within their borders. The vulnerabilities of asylum seekers, refugees and foreign-born migrants have exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, consequently, they are more likely to suffer the physical and mental health and socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19. Such disproportionate impact warrants them to be considered a most-at-risk population. Structures and mechanisms and migrant-aware policies should be put in place both globally and within different countries to ensure that this population is not left behind in the COVID-19 vaccine narratives and considerations. We argue that countries that get COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) vaccines should also explicitly include asylum seekers and refugees in their ‘at-risk populations’, to get the vaccines. Also, the International Organization for Migration and civil society organisations such as Médecins sans Frontières should get sufficient COVAX vaccines and establish mechanisms to ensure the timely vaccination of this population.

ABSTRACT: An estimated 2 million foreign-born migrants of working age (15–64) were living in South Africa (SA) in 2017. Structural and practical xenophobia has driven asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants in SA to abject poverty and misery. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) containment measures adopted by the SA government through the lockdown of the nation have tremendously deepened the unequal treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees in SA. This can be seen through the South African government’s lack of consideration of this marginalized population in economic, poverty, and hunger alleviation schemes. Leaving this category of our society out of the national response safety nets may lead to negative coping strategies causing mental health issues and secondary health concerns. An effective response to the socioeconomic challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic should consider the economic and health impact of the pandemic on asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants.

ABSTRACT: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been the greatest disruption to the movement of people since World War II. Many who had plans—and permission—to move permanently from one country to another have seen their transition put on hold. Worldwide, the flows of tourists, business and professional travelers, and students are all affected. But those most vulnerable to the virus and virus-related policies are low-paid migrant workers who have lost their jobs, and refugees or displaced people. Their lives were precarious even before the pandemic spread.

ABSTRACT: Globally, migrant and immigrant workers have borne the brunt of the COVID‐19 pandemic as essential workers. They might be a Bulgarian worker at a meat processing plant in Germany, a Central American farmworker in the fields of California, or a Filipino worker at an aged‐care facility in Australia. What they have in common is they are all essential workers who have worked throughout the coronavirus pandemic and have been infected with coronavirus at work. COVID‐19 has highlighted the inequitable working conditions of these workers. In many instances, they are employed precariously, and so are ineligible for sick leave or social security, or COVID‐19 special payments. If these are essential workers, they should get at least the same health and safety benefits of all nonessential workers. Improving the working and living conditions of migrant workers can and should be a positive outcome of the coronavirus pandemic.

ABSTRACT: The deteriorating political and economic situation in Venezuela has ramifications far beyond the Latin American country’s borders as almost five million Venezuelans fled and migrated into countries in the region due to the crisis at home. The scarcity of health services, the lack of information sharing, and the absence of reliable data in Venezuela create challenges for confronting developing health emergencies and disease outbreaks. The need for accurate data is especially dire given the current COVID-19 pandemic and evolving movement of refugees. While countries and international organizations came together to form a coordinated response to Venezuela’s political and humanitarian crisis, this geopolitical progress is threatened by the rapid spread of COVID-19, and the instinct for countries to focus inwards on domestic response priorities, rather than engage in regional cooperation. It is critical that the international community set aside geopolitical differences and cooperate to seek an accurate picture of the conditions on the ground to improve the welfare of Venezuelan migrants and to provide a more robust response to the current pandemic.

ABSTRACTS: There are 70 million refugees, displaced people and asylum seekers around the world. Close living quarters, significant underlying health problems and limited access to sanitation and medical care mean that COVID-19 — which has no known treatment and has brought some of the best health systems in the world to their knees — poses an outsized threat to these communities.

ABSTRACT: Immigrant nurses face several challenges upon entering their chosen high-income countries. Their challenges range from personal, cultural, familial, to political challenges. Systematic reviews delineated that immigrant nurses find it extremely difficult to process their nursing license due to regulatory issues; face racism and discrimination in healthcare settings; and experience stigmatization and marginalization from other nurses, patients, and their families.

ABSTRACT: There are more than 258 million international migrants worldwide and the majority reside in countries with ongoing novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic outbreaks. International migrants may not receive adequate and timely disease information during epidemics, increasing vulnerability to disease transmission. This is one of very limited studies focusing on international migrants' COVID-19 prevention knowledge and attitudes during the epidemic.

ABSTRACT: Immigrants are believed to be at high risk of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A leading suspected risk factor is their role in the essential workforce. We aimed to describe COVID-19–related risk factors among Bhutanese and Burmese refugees in the United States.