Sick in the Shadows: Why Immigrants Should Have Health Care

The Dose

Migrants are crossing the southern border in record numbers this year, many of them unaccompanied children. What happens to them once they make it into the U.S., or if they've been here for a long time, when they need health care?

On the latest episode of The Dose podcast, Carrie Byington, executive vice president of University of California Health explains, drawing on her expertise as a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist, and personal experience treating immigrants and their families.

Byington, a member of the Commonwealth Fund’s Board of Directors, describes how the pandemic has illustrated the urgent public health need for immigrants to have health care, because “people may choose to forgo testing, or choose to postpone vaccination if they're afraid to sign up for a vaccine.”