ABSTRACT
Purpose of Review: To identify how recent immigration policies have affected the health of children in immigrant families (CIF). Recent Findings: As the number of children and families arriving to the US border has increased, so too have immigration policies directly targeting them. Summary: Anti-immigrant policies increase the dangers experienced by children migrating to the USA, while also limiting access to needed resources and medical care for CIF inside the country, including many who are US citizens. The resultant deprivation and toxic stress are associated with adverse consequences for children's physical and mental health.
ABSTRACT
Health-related social needs (HRSNs), such as food or housing insecurity, are important drivers of disparities in outcomes during public health emergencies. We describe the development of a telehealth follow-up program in Boston, Massachusetts, for patients discharged from the emergency department after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing to identify patients with worsening clinical symptoms, to screen for unmet HRSNs, and to deliver self-isolation counseling and risk-reduction strategies for socially vulnerable people. We prioritized telephone calls to patients with public health insurance and patients without primary care physicians. In the first 43 days of operation, March 30-May 12, 2020, our intervention reached 509 patients, with 209 (41.1%) patients reporting an HRSN, most commonly related to food, housing, or utilities. Thirty-one (6.1%) patients required assessment by a clinician for clinical worsening. This public health intervention may be useful for other institutions developing programs to address the social and health needs of patients discharged with suspected COVID-19.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 Testing , COVID-19/diagnosis , Health Services Needs and Demand , Patient Discharge , Telemedicine , Vulnerable Populations , Boston/epidemiology , Emergency Service, Hospital , Food Insecurity , Housing , Humans , Patient Isolation , SARS-CoV-2 , Social Determinants of HealthABSTRACT
SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing allows quantitative determination of disease prevalence, which is especially important in high-risk communities. We performed anonymized convenience sampling of 200 currently asymptomatic residents of Chelsea, the epicenter of COVID-19 illness in Massachusetts, by BioMedomics SARS-CoV-2 combined IgM-IgG point-of-care lateral flow immunoassay. The seroprevalence was 31.5% (17.5% IgM+IgG+, 9.0% IgM+IgG-, and 5.0% IgM-IgG+). Of the 200 participants, 50.5% reported no symptoms in the preceding 4 weeks, of which 24.8% (25/101) were seropositive, and 60% of these were IgM+IgG-. These data are the highest seroprevalence rates observed to date and highlight the significant burden of asymptomatic infection.