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Mexico, U.S. Officials Collaborate on Migrant Health Care

Posted on: Thursday, 13 October 2005, 00:00 CDT

By Oscar Avila, Chicago Tribune

Oct. 13--Immigrants who cross back and forth between Mexico and the United States create new medical demands on both sides of the border, forcing the countries to jointly tackle obesity, AIDS and other medical issues, experts said Wednesday.

About 300 public health officials, doctors, researchers and elected officials gathered at the Hyatt Regency Chicago to devise binational strategies for a population that is disproportionately vulnerable to disease, and often without health insurance.

Participants warned that the sheer size of the Mexican population here means that health problems could overwhelm medical providers, strain the budgets of health departments and expose more people to communicable diseases and other public-health risks.

The Mexican and U.S. governments have been collaborating on health policy along the border for about five years, but this week's Chicago conference is the first outside a border state.

The conference drew top officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Mexican Ministry of Health and the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.

"When immigrants move, they change their culture, their society, their customs," said Miguel Angel Gonzalez, executive director of a research center with Mexico's National Institute of Public Health. "But the vulnerabilities they confront don't change."

Chicago has emerged as the nation's second-largest Mexican community. Mexicans around the country have displayed disturbing health characteristics, participants said.

Nearly 40 percent of Mexicans under 65 have no health insurance compared to 16 percent of non-Hispanic whites. At the same time, Mexicans suffer from higher rates of diabetes and chronic disease.

Participants floated ambitious and unlikely proposals -- such as a binational health insurance plan -- as well as basic strategies, such as a computer network that would transmit medical files from Mexican doctors to their U.S. counterparts to improve continuity of care.

Francisco Cisneros, executive director of the Pilsen-Little Village Mental Health Center and a conference organizer, said Mexico has to realize that its people are facing health obstacles in their new country.

Cisneros suggested that Mexican officials invite U.S. health practitioners to study and work there so they can better understand the cultural characteristics of their new Mexican patients.

Mexican officials also could take a leading role in health education in the United States, especially because undocumented immigrants might be reluctant to turn to U.S. government agencies, Cisneros said.

The conference was supplemented by a week of workshops on diabetes, domestic violence and other topics in primarily Hispanic neighborhoods.

Conference participants said the joint approach was especially necessary in battling HIV and AIDS. Health officials said many Mexican men are migrating alone to the United States and engaging in unsafe sex with prostitutes or others. Many are then bringing HIV back to their wives in their Mexican hometowns.

Monica Ochoa-Delgado, community relations manager for the Chicago Department of Public Health, said everyone has a stake in improving the health of Mexicans. If Mexican parents don't have information about vaccinating their child, for example, that lack of care could affect all the child's classmates.

"If I am an immigrant and I get sick and I don't have insurance, it doesn't matter that you are a citizen with insurance," she said. "We all live together. We all need to be healthy."

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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