Community-based clinicians sometimes see patients who have been recently released from immigration detention. Those encounters can be challenging, especially when patients reveal health harms experienced while in detention. It is obviously critical that clinicians provide high-quality medical care and address any health issues potentially brought about or exacerbated by their detention history. But do they… Read More »
Understanding internet access through a human rights framework has been a goal of human rights advocates for years. But COVID-19 has brought the idea of “broadband as a human right” to the forefront as a necessary and urgent human need. A recent study exploring the Social Determinants of Health and COVID-19 mortality, found that individuals without… Read More »
The U.S. government is reportedly harming people held in immigration detention centers with its excessive use of a common disinfectant. According to reports by immigrant advocacy groups, HDQ Neutral disinfectant is being sprayed dozens of times per day in enclosed environments. This is resulting in concerning health symptoms among detained people. This potentially egregious practice further… Read More »
May 6 heralded another grim milestone in the United States: the first COVID-19-related death of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainee, a 57-year-old man from El Salvador. Despite having high blood pressure and possibly diabetes, he had been denied release on bond by a judge. He continued to be held in Otay Mesa Detention… Read More »
In early April, President Trump, in his daily press briefing, told Americans to take the drug hydroxychloroquine, calling it a “game changer” for people with COVID-19: “I really think they should take it. But it’s their choice. And it’s their doctor’s choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine. Try it, if you’d like.”… Read More »
My second child – a daughter – was born 3 days before I was to begin year two of medical school. Already in my 30s, in the first stage of a second career, I decided to push through, and not take any time off. For a year, it worked out, as I had the support… Read More »
The concept that health comes with significant social determinants is everywhere we turn. This idea – that health and health inequities are driven by “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age [and are] shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources” – is increasingly the focus of articles, research… Read More »