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The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States

INTRODUCTION: The United States is home to 10.5 million undocumented immigrants, of which 5 out of 10 are Mexican or Central American. Their immigration status is an obstacle to secure employment that provides labor benefits such as sick leave and health insurance. Living through the global pandemic...

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Autores principales: Rangel Gómez, María Gudelia, Alcocer Varela, Jorge, Salazar Jiménez, Saúl, Olivares Marín, Leonardo, Rosales, Cecilia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9732264/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36504982
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.977792
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author Rangel Gómez, María Gudelia
Alcocer Varela, Jorge
Salazar Jiménez, Saúl
Olivares Marín, Leonardo
Rosales, Cecilia
author_facet Rangel Gómez, María Gudelia
Alcocer Varela, Jorge
Salazar Jiménez, Saúl
Olivares Marín, Leonardo
Rosales, Cecilia
author_sort Rangel Gómez, María Gudelia
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: The United States is home to 10.5 million undocumented immigrants, of which 5 out of 10 are Mexican or Central American. Their immigration status is an obstacle to secure employment that provides labor benefits such as sick leave and health insurance. Living through the global pandemic in the U.S. had a negative impact on this vulnerable population's mental and physical health. They avoided seeking primary or hospital care fearful that they were undocumented and uninsured. The services provided by the Ventanillas de Salud (VDS) “Health Windows” mitigated this pandemic's negative impact and have become an important source to support and increase access to health services among the immigrant community. METHODS: De-identified data from a database system called the Continuous Information System and Health Reports of Mexicans in the United States (SICRESAL-MX) to perform this secondary analysis. The descriptive analysis describes socio-demographic, epidemiological, and situational characteristics of COVID-19. RESULTS: Between January 2020 and July 2021, the VDS and UMS provided 11.5 million individual services to just over 4.3 million people. The main health conditions are overweight and obesity, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol and glucose levels. Between March 2020 to July 2021 a total of 2,481,834 specific services related to COVID-19 were offered. DISCUSSION: The Mexican migrant community in the United States is in a vulnerable situation, largely due to its immigration status which limits their access to health and human services, including primary health care services. Many of them have suffered from chronic diseases since before the pandemic, generating difficulties in monitoring the ailments and exacerbating their conditions.
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spelling pubmed-97322642022-12-10 The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States Rangel Gómez, María Gudelia Alcocer Varela, Jorge Salazar Jiménez, Saúl Olivares Marín, Leonardo Rosales, Cecilia Front Public Health Public Health INTRODUCTION: The United States is home to 10.5 million undocumented immigrants, of which 5 out of 10 are Mexican or Central American. Their immigration status is an obstacle to secure employment that provides labor benefits such as sick leave and health insurance. Living through the global pandemic in the U.S. had a negative impact on this vulnerable population's mental and physical health. They avoided seeking primary or hospital care fearful that they were undocumented and uninsured. The services provided by the Ventanillas de Salud (VDS) “Health Windows” mitigated this pandemic's negative impact and have become an important source to support and increase access to health services among the immigrant community. METHODS: De-identified data from a database system called the Continuous Information System and Health Reports of Mexicans in the United States (SICRESAL-MX) to perform this secondary analysis. The descriptive analysis describes socio-demographic, epidemiological, and situational characteristics of COVID-19. RESULTS: Between January 2020 and July 2021, the VDS and UMS provided 11.5 million individual services to just over 4.3 million people. The main health conditions are overweight and obesity, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol and glucose levels. Between March 2020 to July 2021 a total of 2,481,834 specific services related to COVID-19 were offered. DISCUSSION: The Mexican migrant community in the United States is in a vulnerable situation, largely due to its immigration status which limits their access to health and human services, including primary health care services. Many of them have suffered from chronic diseases since before the pandemic, generating difficulties in monitoring the ailments and exacerbating their conditions. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9732264/ /pubmed/36504982 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.977792 Text en Copyright © 2022 Rangel Gómez, Alcocer Varela, Salazar Jiménez, Olivares Marín and Rosales. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Rangel Gómez, María Gudelia
Alcocer Varela, Jorge
Salazar Jiménez, Saúl
Olivares Marín, Leonardo
Rosales, Cecilia
The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States
title The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States
title_full The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States
title_fullStr The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States
title_full_unstemmed The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States
title_short The impact of COVID-19 and access to health services in the Hispanic/Mexican population living in the United States
title_sort impact of covid-19 and access to health services in the hispanic/mexican population living in the united states
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9732264/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36504982
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.977792
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