The adverse health effects of punitive immigrant policies in the United States: A systematic review.
PLoS One
; 15(12): e0244054, 2020.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-979822
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Immigrants in the United States (US) today are facing a dynamic policy landscape. The Trump administration has threatened or curtailed access to basic services for 10.5 million undocumented immigrants currently in the US. We sought to examine the historical effects that punitive laws have had on health outcomes in US immigrant communities.METHODS:
In this systematic review, we searched the following databases from inception-May 2020 for original research articles with no language restrictions Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, Cochrane Library (Wiley), Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate), CINAHL (EBSCO), and Social Work Abstracts (Ovid). This study is registered with PROSPERO, CRD42019138817. Articles with cohort sizes >10 that directly evaluated the health-related effects of a punitive immigrant law or policy within the US were included.FINDINGS:
6,357 studies were screened for eligibility. Of these, 32 studies were selected for inclusion and qualitatively synthesized based upon four themes that appeared throughout ouranalysis:
(1) impact on healthcare utilization, (2) impact on women's and children's health, (3) impact on mental health services, and (4) impact on public health. The impact of each law, policy, mandate, and directive since 1990 is briefly discussed, as are the limitations and risk of bias of each study.INTERPRETATION:
Many punitive immigrant policies have decreased immigrant access to and utilization of basic healthcare services, while instilling fear, confusion, and anxiety in these communities. The federal government should preserve and expand access for undocumented individuals without threat of deportation to improve health outcomes for US citizens and noncitizens.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Health Status
/
Emigration and Immigration
/
Emigrants and Immigrants
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
/
Reviews
/
Systematic review/Meta Analysis
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
PLoS One
Journal subject:
Science
/
Medicine
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Journal.pone.0244054
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