Refugees and Immigrants in the US

Refugees and Immigrants
Name
Institution

Refugees flee from their countries after instability issues, especially political, leaving them physically and mentally tortured and without resources that could enable them to deal with their problems. The internet is replete with the literature on the evident health needs of immigrants and refugees fleeing their countries due to war and associated political unrest. Also, the older individuals have increased levels of the degenerative conditions that occur with age. However, these individuals have a low rate of service utilization due to various reasons that may be specific to different cultures. Choi, Davis, Cummings, Regenmorter, and Barnett (2012) attempted to find if there are specific barriers to the Kurdish living in the U.S., and their study revealed similar results. Cultural and system inequalities that are mediated by factors such as educational attainment thwart utilization of healthcare services by this minority population. Shrestha-Ranjit, Patterson, Manias, Payne, & Koziol-McLain (2017) indicate that when interventions like health promotion are provided, refugees and immigrants can acquire better health statuses, but this is yet to be proved.
Employment is an important aspect of the refugees’ and immigrants’ lives because it can help them gain self-sufficiency and acquire some form of financial independence to meet some of their needs. However, these individuals are not able to acquire the expected jobs leading to job dissatisfaction and negative attitudes towards the pursuit of the “American dream” (Baran, Valcea, Porter, & Gallagher, 2017).

Only the immigrant has this option as he or she is able to return to his or her home country but the converse is the case for the refugee. Hence, the refugee has to remain in the host country and try to overcome the barriers associated with low employment in this population (Jamil et al., 2012). Most of the refugees leave their homes impromptu while the immigrants usually have a pre-determined destination and are in a better position to acquire employment than the refugees.

References
Baran, B. E., Valcea, S., Porter, T. H., & Gallagher, V. C. (2017). Survival, expectations, and employment: An inquiry of refugees and immigrants to the United States. Journal of Vocational Behavior. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.10.011.
Choi, S., Davis, C., Cummings, S. Regenmorter, C. V., & Barnett, M. (2015). Understanding service needs and service utilization among older Kurdish refugees and immigrants in the USA. International Social Work, 58(1), 63-74.
Jamil, H., Kanno, S. S., Abo-Shasha, R., AlSaqa, M. M., Fakhouri, M., & Arnetz, B. B. (2012). Promoters and barriers to work: a comparative study of refugees versus immigrants in the United States. The New Iraqi Journal of Medicine, 8(2), 19–28.
Shrestha-Ranjit, A., Patterson, E., Manias, E., Payne, D., & Koziol-McLain, J. (2017). Effectiveness of Primary Health Care Services in Addressing Mental Health Needs of Minority Refugee Population in New Zealand. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 38(4), 290-300