Despite immigrants embodying 17% of the overall US workforce, they disproportionately represent 28% of physicians and 24% of dentists with larger percentages found in peripheral healthcare roles such as home health aides [1]. The 2021 US Census recorded 46.2 million (documented and undocumented) immigrants, making the US the country with the largest immigrant population in the world [2]. Despite these numbers, immigrant healthcare workers and patients have had limited positive exposure in the greater media, underscored by the lack of positive representation even amidst the pandemic. Instead, news headlines stigmatizing the pandemic as the “China ” or “Wuhan ” virus increased anti-Asian hate crimes by as much as 339% nationwide, and has even become common use among academics in the scientific community [3][4].
The current body of research underscores the difficulty of international healthcare workers in obtaining further training and jobs and the lack of adequate access to healthcare. For example, the main residency match 2022 revealed that non-US citizen International Medical Graduates, foreign nationals who completed medical school outside the US, had the lowest match rate compared to MDs and DOs who graduated from US programs as well as US Citizens who received their medical education abroad (US citizen IMGs) [5]. Despite the US’s large immigrant population, immigrants (defined as noncitizens) are 3 times more likely to be uninsured, with many of them relying on free or reduced-price care at predominately government-owned facilities that is reaching its limits on uncompensated/undercompensated healthcare costs; this doesn’t account for the undocumented immigrants not covered by Medicaid/Medical [6].
The primary evidence posed to explain this disparity is a lack of income and employer-sponsored coverage [7]. Although the available information might present the range of issues, there is an underwhelming amount of representation illustrating the depth and gravity of the challenges affecting immigrant patients and healthcare workers as well as their contributions to the healthcare system in America. Moreover, with the composition of the US immigrant population changing rapidly– since 1965 there has been a reduction in immigrants from European countries and Canada and a rise from Asian, Latin and other countries– the nuance in lived experiences presents another opportunity to increase representation for immigrant diaspora [8].
References:
1. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/immigrant-health-care-workers-united-states-2018
2. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/
4. https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/9/e003746
5. https://data.newamericaneconomy.org/en/immigrant-workers-at-risk-coronavirus/
6. https://www.nrmp.org/match-data-analytics/residency-data-reports/ 7. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/why-immigrants-lack-adequate-access-health-care-and-health-insurance
8. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/
Immigrants of Medicine 