Talk:Immigrant health care in the United States

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 January 2019 and 24 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nickallen7.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2019 and 15 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Amymu123. Peer reviewers: Emilymohlin.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2019 and 20 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Am.nalula. Peer reviewers: Tbeglarian.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 18 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gabelayug. Peer reviewers: Molleighroy.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Serendipity305.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Editing/Expanding Page
I plan on thoroughly expanding upon the article, Immigrant health care in the United States. As it stands now, the entry lacks references and sources, and has been rated as low-importance. However, given the context of continually rising immigration in the United States today, this subject and its connection to national health inequalities are relevant to policy makers and the U.S.’s growing foreign-born population. Currently, the entry lacks any sections beyond a brief introduction; it offers an insubstantial amount of information about the extent of the issue. Therefore, elaboration on this article would benefit the Wikipedia community.

I want to add to this article by contributing more extensive background information about the scale of immigrant health care in the United States—including what kinds of providers exist and statistics about its usage and accessibility. I also want to write about the challenges and implications of this issue, e.g. how/what cultural barriers stand between immigrants and their ability to obtain adequate health care services. Finally, I would like to address the system’s overall level of effectiveness and major points of critique by examining the issue from different perspectives.

I will specifically be drawing evidence from medical and policy texts that address immigrant health care, from publications such as American Journal of Public Health and Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants. I will also use government reports. However, it would be particularly helpful to receive advice on how to best organize my article. Specifically, in my anticipated section describing the overall system’s effectiveness—should I also include reform debates as a subsection? Or does this content belong under an altogether different section? Any advice or tips you have to share would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much! JoyceChou (talk) 02:11, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggested Edits
Joyce, this is a wonderful, thorough, well-written and well organized article! One suggestion I have is to add a section on the Affordable Care Act and how health care reform will/might change immigrant access to care and the implications. For instance, illegal immigrants under the new law will not be allowed to buy health insurance in the cooperatives. See this short animated video from the Kaiser Family Foundation which might help with understanding the new bill: http://healthreform.kff.org/The-Animation.aspx

Some very minor suggested edits: 1)trimming down the introduction to the first 2 sentences for a broader view. The rest can become topic sentences later on in the article. 2) When you cited the number of immigrants in the US, I would add a reference in text such as "according to the..." to emphasize that this is result of a report, not absolute fact. 3) In the Health Care Providers section, you could add a topic sentence that briefly describes what a provider is, that they are public and private types before going into detail.

Overall, this is a wonderful and informative article, and I really enjoyed reading it. Great job! Jennyxwen (talk) 01:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Jennyxwen, thank you for the helpful peer review! To address your suggestions, I have edited my article accordingly:


 * I added a new section, 4.3 Recent legislation, to discuss the Affordable Care Act and its health care implications for immigrants. Thanks so much for this suggestion in particular—I am surprised I didn’t already recognize the act’s relevance to the article! That video was also very helpful in clarifying some of the act’s provisions, some of which are difficult to understand when reading formal government reports.


 * I shortened the introduction.


 * I adjusted the sentence you referred to in 1 Overview to include its source (the Population Reference Bureau).


 * I changed the beginning of 1.1 Health care providers by adding two sentences about the U.S.’s health care system overall and rewording the following ones to accommodate that change.


 * Thanks again for all the suggestions, Jennyxwen!
 * JoyceChou (talk) 02:40, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggested Revisions
Great job, Joyce! You've done a ton of work on this since our in-class workshop. A few minor suggestions:

1) I agree with Jenny about revising the intro. I think it is useful to show how the unique obstacles and challenges that immigrants in the US face affects their health outcomes, but right now the mention of preventative care seems almost thrown in as an after thought. I would either expand a bit more on how these various economic and social factors impact health outcomes or not mention them at all here.

2) In your section on Hispanics, you mention that they have less access to healthcare overall. I don't know if you have statistics on this, but it may be helpful to mention some specifics on how/whether this lack of access results in poorer health outcomes for these individuals. Also, just a side note, I think that the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino" are not entirely interchangeable. It might be useful to clarify which group each of the various statistics you cite was referring to.

3) I found the "Social Barriers" section extremely interesting. I know that some hospitals/clinics have translators but I don't know how common this is or how much this helps reduce the social barriers that arise because of lack of English proficiency. You don't need to include this information, but it might be interesting to mention it if it's easy to find.

Overall, I think this article is very well thought out and gives a broad background on the topic. Nice work! Naomi FK (talk) 22:51, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Naomi FK, thanks for all the helpful suggestions! I have edited my article accordingly:


 * I looked back at my references for 2.2 Hispanics and found that at least one used “Hispanic” and “Latino” interchangeably. However, I did some quick research to confirm your point that there is a slight discrepancy between the terms. Though this reference may not have recognized that, I agree with your suggested edit completely. As a result, I have added a new topic sentence to clarify my use of the word “Hispanics” and replaced “Latino” for more consistency.


 * I also elaborated more on 2.2 Hispanics by including information about their health outcomes relative to the average population and describing the Hispanic paradox.


 * Your last suggestion is definitely something I will look into further. Right now I am reviewing my resources that discuss the various social barriers against immigrants, and I’ll probably search for more for our last wave of revisions. Thanks again for all of the advice!


 * JoyceChou (talk) 03:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggested Edits
Joyce, I feel that this topic is very appropriate, especially when there is so much dialogue surrounding the Universal Health Care Act. One suggestion that I have is that in your “Findings and Statistics” section you include the discrepancies in access to health care for more populations instead of solely Hispanics. I am curious to know whether or not lack of healthcare access is across the board for all immigrant groups. If not, are their certain practices that put certain groups at a disadvantage relative to other groups? For example when you state that Hispanics have less healthcare coverage than whites overall regardless of immigrant status is this barrier related to discriminatory practices? I think that incorporating findings of this nature would put an interesting perspective on your topic. It would have also been interesting if you more directly analyzed how race, gender and age factored into the social barriers that kept immigrants from receiving health services. Overall, this was a very well written article. I especially like your organization of the content. It was very easy to follow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by B4change1 (talk • contribs) 01:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)


 * B4change1, thanks for the suggestions and kind words! Given timing issues, I can’t immediately make your suggested edits but I will definitely look into doing so as a part of our final contributions assignment.


 * Specifically, I plan on looking into how other immigrant groups are impacted for 2 Findings and statistics. I devoted subsections to children and Hispanics in particular because they have a larger body of research, given their dominance in the immigrant population. However, I will definitely do some research on other racial groups—my searches right now are showing a few promising reports about Asian immigrants. Of course, I will also look into other groups and try to better elaborate on these findings.


 * Thanks again for the review!


 * JoyceChou (talk) 03:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed New Subsection and Other Contributions
Hi all,

I am planning to add a subsection titled "Women" under the "Findings and Statistics" section. I have found some academic research that relates to the unique struggles of immigrant women in receiving proper health care in the United States. With this information I feel that this group needs to discussed individually, as is currently done for Children, Hispanics and Latinos, and Asians.

A related but distinct contribution I will be making is under "Policy challenges and proposed solutions." Research I have found suggests the practice of narrative medicine as a significant step towards bringing fair and equitable health care to immigrants. I plan to detail the potential benefits of this approach as well as potential downfalls.

I also intend to bolster multiple areas throughout the article with updated facts and information. These will be minor changes and I do not intend to edit the work of others aside from slight changes to accommodate my additions. Any questions/concerns please feel free to reach out. Thanks!

Nickallen7 (talk) 16:50, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Suggested Edits
Hi! I think this is a great and truly interesting article. I especially like your addition of the policy challenges section. I think it could also be interesting to include some additional content, for example: information on other immigrant groups, such as from Africa or the Middle East. Amymu123 (talk) 03:49, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposed Edits
Hi again! I am interested in working on this article for a WikiEd sponsored course I am currently taking. Specifically, I would like to include discussion of immigration detention, deferred action, and more recent policy developments that impact immigrant health care. I would also like to expand the article to discuss healthcare more holistically, touching on cost and quality as well as access. I am also interested in including information on demographic groups previously omitted (such as immigrants from Africa). For more information, check out my User page and sandbox. Amymu123 (talk) 01:21, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Drafted edits
For some of my proposed edits, I've drafted part of a new lead for the article, which will be updated as I complete other sections so that it can accurately summarize the full scope of the article. I've also drafted a rewrite of some of the content from the Overview section to focus it on health care accessibility, with some introduction to complementary and alternative medicine. Lastly, I've drafted a paragraph concerning health care conditions in immigration detention centers. For more information and the drafts themselves, feel free to visit my User page and sandbox! Amymu123 (talk) 01:03, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Article Revision
your article looks great. I would focus mainly on making sure that you cite after every statement, preferably after every sentence, and make sure that you use a neutral tone throughout the article. These two things are particularly important in the “detention center” section. Consider adding some images to enhance your article’s visual appeal. I’m impressed by the extent of your contribution and interest in spreading awareness of a very important topic. Natsz72 (talk) 19:00, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Peer Review of Article
Amy, I think your article is excellent! You integrated new information regarding healthcare in immigration detention centers seamlessly into the existing article, and your structuring of the article makes it easily comprehensible for a first-time reader like me. I think including images might help more visual learners understand more about your topic, and including more links to non-health related topics would help readers see the connections between this health-related article and non-health related articles, enhancing the interdisciplinary approach we've talked about a lot in class. I think the most important thing you could do to improve would be to focus on the content of your article—in particular, in section 3.1.3, and expanding on it by adding more details or citations. The other sections near it are longer—appearing to give those sections greater weight and importance, which I don't think is your intention. Overall, great job, and I'm so glad I got to learn more about this topic from your edits to this article! Thanks for all your hard work!Emilymohlin (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Added subsection
The article looks very thorough and well discussed! I added a subsection under the public opinion on immigrant health benefits to address another historical perspective on the topic. It includes information about the Healthy Migrant theory and the way it discouraged the support for immigrant health provisions. (Am.nalula (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2019 (UTC))

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:09, 2 January 2023 (UTC)