Building Immigration-Informed, Cross-Sector Coalitions: Findings from the Los Angeles County Health Equity for Immigrants Summit

Altaf Saadi; Mary L Cheffers; Breena Taira; Rebecca Trotzky-Sirr; Parveen Parmar; Shamsher Samra; Janina L Morrison; Sural Shah; Todd Schneberk

doi:10.1089/heq.2019.0048

Building Immigration-Informed, Cross-Sector Coalitions: Findings from the Los Angeles County Health Equity for Immigrants Summit

Health Equity. 2019 Aug 23;3(1):431-435. doi: 10.1089/heq.2019.0048. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Altaf Saadi¹, Mary L Cheffers², Breena Taira³, Rebecca Trotzky-Sirr², Parveen Parmar², Shamsher Samra⁴, Janina L Morrison⁵, Sural Shah^{3

6}, Todd Schneberk²

Affiliations

¹ National Clinician Scholars Program, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.
² Department of Emergency Medicine, LAC+USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
³ Department of Emergency Medicine, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Sylmar, California.
⁴ Department of Emergency Medicine, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California.
⁵ Primary Care Internal Medicine, The Wellness Center, LAC+USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
⁶ Division of Internal Medicine-Pediatrics, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.

Abstract

In December 2017, the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs and Board of Supervisors, alongside local health care and legal providers, convened the Health Equity for Immigrants and Families Summit to advance a vision for immigrant health. We describe the four critical concepts identified by stakeholders to address the varied needs of immigrants in an increasingly anti-immigrant political environment: (1) Recognizing immigration status as a modifiable social determinant of health; (2) Adopting the concept of "Immigration-Informed Care" within health care institutions; (3) Establishing immigration-focused medical-legal partnerships; and (4) Building coordinated systems based on knowledge of local stakeholders, policies, and funding mechanisms.

Keywords: health disparities; immigrant health; medical-legal partnerships; public health.