Order Keepers or Immigration Agents? Latine Immigrant Views of Law Enforcement in Healthcare Settings.

BACKGROUND: Police and security presence in healthcare settings have grown. There are few studies exploring perceptions of these law enforcement agents among US Latine immigrants, who can be vulnerable to immigration enforcement actions due to past and ongoing criminalization and anti-immigrant policies. OBJECTIVE: To explore Latine immigrants' perceptions of law enforcement in healthcare settings. DESIGN: Exploratory, semi-structured qualitative interviews asked participants about their perspectives of law enforcement in healthcare settings. PARTICIPANTS: English- and Spanish-speaking adult patients (n = 19) from a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Los Angeles, CA, serving predominantly low-income Latine immigrants. APPROACH: We used the framework method for analysis to establish a codebook and inform our thematic interpretation. KEY RESULTS: We identified three themes: (1) perceptions of safety offered by police officers are separated from the role of immigration officers; (2) perceptions of police officers are integrated into broader perceptions of the healthcare system; and (3) lived experiences, including immigration status, influenced valence response to officer uniforms and perceptions of officers. Most participants viewed police officers positively as maintaining order and safety, separating them from federal immigration enforcement actions, and reflecting on local, state, and organizational "sanctuary" or immigrant-friendly policies. Individuals with precarious immigration status more often saw officers as intimidating. Immigration enforcement remained a key concern. CONCLUSIONS: Differentiating police and security roles from immigration enforcement in healthcare could improve Latine immigrant trust and access. Future studies should explore perspectives of Latine immigrants in localities without sanctuary laws or organizational immigrant-friendly policies.

Neurological Care of Refugees and Other Forcibly Displaced Persons.

There are more than 100 million forcibly displaced persons (FDPs) in the world today, including a high number of people who experience neurologic symptoms and presentations. This review summarizes the conceptual frameworks for understanding neurological health risks and conditions across the migration journey (premigration, migration journey, and postmigration) and life span, including special attention to pediatric FDPs. The interaction with psychiatric illness is discussed, as well as the available published data on neurologic presentations in FDPs in the medical literature. A social determinant of health lens is used to provide ways in which forcible displacement can influence brain health and neurological outcomes. Priorities and future needs for the neurological care of refugees and other FDPs are suggested.

Concordance in Child-Parent Reporting of Social Victimization Experiences in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate child-parent concordance in reporting social victimization experiences and whether parent concordance with child report of victimization was associated with child behavioral symptoms. METHODS: This was an observational study with data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Social Development (ABCD-SD) substudy. The analytic sample was 2415 pre-adolescent children from the United States. We assessed parent-child concordance on six domains of child social victimization: conventional crime, peer victimization, witnessing violence, internet victimization, school victimization, and gun violence. Child behavior symptoms were measured using the parent-report Child Behavior Checklist. Interrater agreement and multiple linear and logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess parent concordance with child report of victimization and its relationship to behavioral symptoms. RESULTS: Interrater agreement in parent-child social victimizations reports was low, with Cohen's Kappa values ranging from 0.10 to 0.23. Compared to parent-child dyads in which neither reported victimization, parent concordance with child report of victimization across multiple domains of social victimization was associated with more internalizing/externalizing behaviors, as was parent discordance with child reports that did not indicate victimization. Among children who reported victimization, parents' perceptions of greater neighborhood safety were associated with lower odds of concordant parent report of conventional crime (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.90-0.98) and witnessing violence (OR = 0.94, 95% CI-0.89-0.98). CONCLUSIONS: Parents and children do not necessarily agree in reporting social victimization experiences. Parent reports of child social victimization, whether they were concordant with positive child reports or discordant with negative child reports, were associated with parent reports of behavioral symptoms and thus may be an indicator of the severity of experiences, underscoring the need to consider multiple informants when screening for adversity.

Clinician perspectives on characteristics and care of traumatic brain injury among asylum seekers and refugees.

PURPOSE: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) disproportionately affects asylum-seekers and refugees (ASR), although underdiagnosed and undertreated. Our study assesses clinicians' perspectives on characteristics and management of TBI among ASR, with the hope of improving TBI management in this population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted six focus groups of 16 clinicians across two academic medical centers in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Clinicians in our sample included primary care clinicians, nurse practitioners, social workers, psychologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, and neuropsychologists. We analyzed the qualitative data following a hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analytic approach. RESULTS: Clinicians characterized TBI among ASR as mostly mild and remote, involving head strikes, perpetrated predominantly by interpersonal violence and strangulation-related brain injury, and involving symptom overlap with mental health diagnoses, challenging diagnosis. Clinicians also described inadequate screening, the importance of connecting the physical and psychological symptoms of the brain injury rather than viewing them as distinct, and addressing diagnosis-related stigma and shame. Finally, they discussed lack of TBI-specific knowledge among providers and patients alike, and resource limitations affecting the continuum of care for this population. CONCLUSION: Integrating clinicians' perspectives in caring for this population allows us to best meet their needs, including in TBI recovery.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) disproportionately affects asylum-seekers and refugees (ASR).ASR predominantly sustain TBI through head strikes, but strangulation-related brain injury is under-recognized and must be assessed alongside common TBI mechanisms of injury.Current challenges in assessing TBI in ASR include mild and remote presentation of TBI, perpetration in contexts of interpersonal violence, and symptom overlap with mental health diagnoses.Rehabilitation professionals can enhance TBI-related assessment, care, and communication by enhancing education of ASR patients and clinicians who serve them. This includes implementing use of, and improving, existing screening tools.

Partnering With Immigrant Patients and Families to Move Beyond Cultural Competence: A Role for Clinicians and Health Care Organizations.

The delivery of culturally competent health care is recognized as critical to providing quality, equitable care for marginalized groups. This includes immigrant patients and families who experience significant barriers to health care and poor health outcomes. However, operationalization of cultural competence challenges health care delivery. Complementary concepts have also emerged such as cultural humility, cultural safety, and structural competence, recognizing the need for multi-level approaches involving patients, families, clinicians, health care organizations, the larger community, and policymakers. In this review, we define cultural competency and related frameworks and their applicability to immigrant patients and families. The evolution in terminology reflects an increasingly more comprehensive approach to understanding culture as multidimensional and shaped by social and structural factors. We then highlight strategies at each level, focusing on clinicians and organizations to leverage loci of control most directly within clinicians' reach. Community-level strategies include community engagement (ie, vis-à-vis community health workers or community advisory boards) for clinical and research practice. Organization-level strategies include "immigrant-friendly," or "immigration-informed" policies aimed at reducing immigration-related stressors, like limiting cooperation with immigration enforcement agencies or developing medical-legal partnerships to assist with patients' legal needs. Lastly, policy-level strategies seek to change local and federal policies to address needs beyond health care (eg, education, housing, other social services), taking a "Health in All" policies approach that articulates health considerations into policymaking across sectors. Finally, we conclude with suggestions for future directions that center the experiences of immigrants, with the ultimate goal of sustainably meeting the complex needs of immigrant patients and families.

Head Injury and Associated Sequelae in Individuals Seeking Asylum in the United States: A Retrospective Mixed-Methods Review of Medico-Legal Affidavits.

People seeking asylum are susceptible to head injury (HI) due to exposure to various forms of violence including war, torture, or interpersonal violence. Yet, the extents to which clinicians assess HI, and if so, what the associated characteristics are, are not well known. We analyzed 200 U.S.-based medico-legal affidavits using descriptive, multivariate regression, and thematic analysis. Head injury was documented in 38% of affidavits. Those who experienced physical violence were eight times likelier to experience HI than those who did not experience physical violence. Five themes emerged: (1) HI occurred commonly in the context of interpersonal violence (44%), followed by militarized violence (33%); (2) mechanisms of HI included direct blows to the head and asphyxiation, suggesting potential for both traumatic brain injury and brain injury from oxygen deprivation; (3) HI was often recurrent and concurrent with other physical injuries; (4) co-morbid psychiatric and post-concussive symptoms made it challenging to assess neurological and psychiatric etiologies; and (5) overall, there was a paucity of assessments and documentation of HI and sequelae. Among individuals assessed for asylum claims, HI is common, often recurrent, occurring in the context of interpersonal violence, and concurrent with psychological and other physical trauma. Physical violence is an important risk factor for HI, which should be assessed when physical violence is reported.

Funding for Refugee Health Research From the National Institutes of Health Between 2000 and 2020.

Importance: The US has historically resettled more refugees than any other country, with over 3.5 million refugees since 1980. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest public funder of biomedical research and development, but its role in mitigating many health disparities refugees experience through its funded research remains unknown. Objective: To examine the NIH's research funding patterns on refugee health research over the last 2 decades. Design, Setting, and Participants: Secondary analysis of NIH-funded grants between 2000 and 2020 using a cross-sectional study design. The NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools database was used to find relevant grants. Data were analyzed from November 2021 to September 2022. Main Outcomes and Measures: NIH grants awarded by year, state, grant type, research area, funding institute, grant duration, and amount funded. Results: Of 1.7 million NIH grants funded over the 20-year study period, only 78 addressed refugee health. Funded grants were mostly training grants (23 grants [29%]), followed by hypothesis-driven research (R01 grants; 22 grants [28%]), pilot or preliminary investigation proposals (13 grants [17%]), and other types of grants (20 grants [26%]). The most studied research domain was mental health (36 grants [46%]), followed by refugee family dynamics and women's and children's health (14 grants [18%]). A total of 26 grants (33%) were funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and 15 (19%) were funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Most grants were US-based (60 grants [76%]) and the state of Massachusetts received the greatest amount of funding ($14 825 852 [18%]). In 2020, the NIH allocated about $2.3 million to refugee health research, or less than 0.01% of its $42 billion budget that year. The number of grants funded in each time period did not always reflect changes in the number of refugees resettled in the US over the years. Conclusions and Relevance: This cross-sectional study found that there remain significant gaps in the understanding of and interventions in the health research needs of refugees locally and along the migratory route. To close these gaps, the NIH should increase its investments in comprehensive studies assessing the physical, mental, and social well-being of this expanding population. This can be achieved by ensuring that all NIH institutes allocate budgets specifically for refugee health research and extend support for the training of refugee researchers.

Social Determinants of Health and Health Equity in the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Sport-Related Concussion: A Content Analysis of Intervention Research and Call-To-Action.

This review was designed to (1) determine the extent to which the clinical science on sport-related concussion treatment and rehabilitation has considered social determinants of health (SDoH) or health equity and (2) offer recommendations to enhance the incorporation of SDoH and health equity in concussion treatment research and clinical care. The Concussion in Sport Group consensus statement (2023) was informed by two systematic reviews examining prescribed rest or exercise following concussion and targeted interventions to facilitate concussion recovery. We examined 31 studies, including 2,698 participants, from those two reviews. Race (k = 6; 19.4%) and ethnicity (k = 4; 12.9%) of the study samples were usually not reported. Four studies examined ethnicity (i.e., Hispanic), exclusively as a demographic category. Five studies (16.1%) examined race as a demographic category. Three studies (9.7%) examined socioeconomic status (SES; measured as household income) as a demographic category/sample descriptor and one study (3.2%) examined SES in-depth, by testing whether the treatment and control groups differed by SES. Five studies examined an SDoH domain in a descriptive manner and four studies in an inferential/intentional manner. No study mentioned SDoH, health equity, or disparities by name. Many studies (61.3%) excluded participants based on demographic, sociocultural, or health factors, primarily due to language proficiency. The new consensus statement includes recommendations for concussion treatment and rehabilitation that rely on an evidence base that has not included SDoH or studies addressing health equity. Researchers are encouraged to design treatment and rehabilitation studies that focus specifically on underrepresented groups to determine if they have specific and unique treatment and rehabilitation needs, whether certain practical modifications to treatment protocols might be necessary, and whether completion rates and treatment adherence and response are similar.

Associations between Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), Discrimination, and Internalizing/Externalizing in Pre-Adolescents.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the relationships between four types of perceived discrimination (based on race and ethnicity, nationality/country of origin, gender identity, weight/body size), individually and cumulatively; positive childhood experiences (PCEs); and behavioral symptoms among pre-adolescent youth. METHODS: This study was a secondary analysis of data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a US-based cohort study of pre-adolescent youth in the United States (N = 10,915). Our outcome was emotional/behavioral symptoms measured by the Child Behavior Checklist. Primary exposures were four types of discrimination, a count of 0-5 PCEs, and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Multiple logistic regression models were used to estimate the relationship between perceived discrimination and clinical-range behavioral symptoms, including the role of PCEs and ACEs. RESULTS: Weight discrimination was the most frequent exposure (n = 643, 5.9%). Race and weight perceived discrimination were associated with clinical-range externalizing and internalizing symptoms, respectively, but these associations were non significant once other ACEs were added to models. Cumulative discrimination was associated with clinical-range Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) scores, even when accounting for other ACEs (aOR=1.47, 95% CI=1.2-1.8). PCEs slightly reduced the strength of this relationship and were independently associated with reduced symptoms (aOR=0.82, 95% CI=0.72-0.93). CONCLUSIONS: Results of this national study suggest cumulative discrimination can exert emotional/behavioral health harm among youth. PCEs were independently associated with reduced behavioral symptoms. There is a need for further research on how to prevent discrimination and bolster PCEs by targeting upstream social inequities in communities.