DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
COVID 19: Through the Lenses of Immigrants
SAEM PULSE | MAY-JUNE 2021
By Monalisa Muchatuta, MD, MS; Carolina Camacho-Ruiz, MD; and Adedoyin Adesina, MD, on behalf of the SAEM Academy for Diversity & Inclusion in Emergency Medicine
22
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected every stratum of society, its particular impact on the United States immigrant population must not go unacknowledged. In addition to suffering an infection rate higher than that of nonimmigrants, immigrants face additional barriers to the care, information, resources, and support necessary to protect themselves and their families. Immigrants, for example, are disproportionately represented in lines of work that put them at increased risk of infection and usually do not have the luxury of working remotely. Many immigrants are essential workers and remain vulnerable to increased exposure
while unfortunately often underinsured. Impossible dilemmas arise in these circumstances: Do I quit my job to reduce the risk of infecting myself and my multigenerational household or do I stay at my job so I can pay our rent? The pandemic has impacted immigrants’ financial stability, health, and social welfare in countless ways. Many do not have access to resources comparable to their nativeborn counterparts. Undocumented immigrants, for instance, are ineligible for unemployment benefits or federal relief funds while a large proportion may lack established personal network for emergency support.
Immigrants suffer limited access to health information and service in their primary language, making them particularly vulnerable to misinformation without verification from trusted, evidence-based sources. Medical experts in these communities continue to work relentlessly to eliminate dissemination of unreliable information. As immigrants ourselves and practicing physicians who have witnessed these troubling trends, we believe it is important to highlight these issues and share how we perceive that our communities have been affected. At the beginning of the pandemic, calls and messages poured in from
