Mexican immigrants face many barriers in their attempt to access healthcare in the United States. While language barriers are one of the most well-known issues, Mexicans in the US face many other obstacles, including the financial burden of care, lack of health insurance, difficulties navigating healthcare systems, and lack of pre-migration access to health care. While some of these barriers are well documented in the literature, others, such as the impact of pre-migration factors, remain poorly understood. The purpose of the current study is to address a fuller range of barriers faced by Mexican immigrants in the US by exploring immigrants’ pre-migration access to medical care, health experiences, and knowledge of medical systems to determine whether such factors impact immigrants care-seeking practices once in the US. Specifically, this quantitative research project will include conducting surveys with 300 Mexican origins, foreign-born participants drawn from the sample of a previous study focussing on liver disease in southern Arizona. In collaboration with University of Arizona researchers who specialize in Latino immigrant health, I worked to create and finalize a survey instrument aimed to document the relationship between pre and post-migration care access, define the methodology for the proposed project, and submit a full Institutional Review Board application in order to prepare for data gathering in Fall 2021. Given the strong correlation between barriers to healthcare access and utilization and overall well-being, this research is designed to inform interventions that decrease the difficulties Mexican immigrants face in accessing healthcare and thereby improve overall health.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Latinx immigrants in the U.S. have been disproportionately impacted by high rates of COVID infection, mortality rates, loss of employment, and reduced access to public benefits. Shifts in immigration policies and a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment during the past two decades have placed Latinx immigrants at risk of experiencing mental and physical health challenges during the pandemic. Children of immigrant families who are experiencing these stressors may be at greater risk of experiencing depression, anxiety, and or fear of family separation due to fear of family separation due to immigration enforcement. Therefore, it is important to examine how parental stressors have impacted Latinx immigrant family well-being during the pandemic so that we can better meet their social service needs. This study reviews relevant literature on the impact of mental and physical health, and economic wellness on Latinx immigrant youth and families during the pandemic from 2020-2021. Overall, these studies show that Latinx youth and families have been negatively impacted by restrictive immigration enforcement policies coupled with high rates of COVID-19, which have resulted in economic job loss, and compounded stressors which have resulted in increased rates of anxiety, and depression among both youth and adults. These finding have implications for both social work practice and policy, suggesting that culturally competent service provision and interventions are needed to aid in the pandemic recovery of Latinx immigrant families.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has revealed social and racial inequalities in public health across the globe. The purpose of this study is to investigate how said inequalities have impacted the health equity of racial and ethnic minority groups, particularly focusing on the health disparities and barriers certain groups might face in comparison to others. This includes covering minority health, vaccine equity, vaccine hesitancy, and factors that have disproportionately impacted racial and ethnic minority groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. These factors will help analyze how social and health inequities affect access to health care services and to COVID-19 vaccines. This study was conducted using secondary sources to gather data on minority health, the overrepresenation of vulnerable populations among COVID-19 cases, and vaccination rates for these populations.