scholarly journals What Do We Know About the Health Status of Asylum Seekers in the United States? Identifying Research Gaps Following a Bibliometric Scoping Review of Existing Literature

Author(s):  
Jessica Beer ◽  
C. Scott Dorris ◽  
Dahlia Fateen ◽  
Ranit Mishori

Abstract Background: Asylum Seekers are a high-risk group from a health perspective. The US is the largest recipient of asylum applications in the world. Multiple articles exist on asylum seekers’ health, but, anecdotally, the majority originate from Europe and elsewhere. We sought to assess the current health and medical literature on asylum seekers in the US, where asylum seekers are a distinct population from refugees. This limited representation in the scientific literature can impact the care they receive. We analyzed the existing literature on asylum seekers in the US via a Scoping Review of the literature from 1946 to 2020 that discussed the health of asylum seekers in the US. Refugees were excluded given their legal status which distinguishes the protections they receive. Results: A total of 114 articles were identified; 48 (42.1%) of which were empirical studies; (66 (57.9%) were editorials or commentaries. Analysis of empirical studies revealed enhanced focus on mental health (60.42%), on African asylees (45.83%). The majority of the editorials and commentaries focused on detention and the medico-legal process (31.82% and 30.3% respectively). Conclusion: Empirical data on the health of asylum seekers in the US context is very limited. Research gaps include domains that span the medical, social, and legal fields. Research expansion requires increased dedication from the research community, funding, and the ethical engagement of these vulnerable populations. This is especially important given the unprecedented migration and displacement of populations in the 21st century.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantal Morin ◽  
Isabelle Gaboury

Abstract Background Despite the increasing use of osteopathy, a manipulative complementary and alternative medicine therapy, in the general population, its efficacy continues to be debated. In this era of evidence-based practice, no studies have previously reviewed the scientific literature in the field to identify published knowledge, trends and gaps in empirical research. The aims of this bibliometric analysis are to describe characteristics of articles published on the efficacy of osteopathic interventions and to provide an overall portrait of their impacts in the scientific literature. Methods A bibliometric analysis approach was used. Articles were identified with searches using a combination of relevant MeSH terms and indexing keywords about osteopathy and research designs in MEDLINE and CINAHL databases. The following indicators were extracted: country of primary author, year of publication, journals, impact factor of the journal, number of citations, research design, participants’ age group, system/body part addressed, primary outcome, indexing keywords and types of techniques. Results A total of 389 articles met the inclusion criteria. The number of empirical studies doubled every 5 years, with the United States, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom being the most productive countries. Twenty-three articles were cited over 100 times. Articles were published in 103 different indexed journals, but more than half (53.7%) of articles were published in one of three osteopathy-focused readership journals. Randomized control trials (n = 145; 37.3%) and case reports (n = 142; 36.5%) were the most common research designs. A total of 187 (48.1%) studies examined the effects of osteopathic interventions using a combination of techniques that belonged to two or all of the classic fields of osteopathic interventions (musculoskeletal, cranial, and visceral). Conclusion The number of osteopathy empirical studies increased significantly from 1980 to 2014. The productivity appears to be very much in sync with practice development and innovations; however, the articles were mainly published in osteopathic journals targeting a limited, disciplinary-focused readership.


Author(s):  
Michael Klausner

This chapter examines the empirical literature on corporate law and governance in the United States. Four areas of the US corporate governance literature are discussed: (i) state competition to produce corporate law, (ii) independent boards, (iii) takeover defenses, and (iv) the use of corporate governance indices. The chapter concludes that these areas of research reflect varying degrees of success. The literature on state competition has been a major success. We know much more in this area as a result of empirical analysis in this area than we did on the basis of theory alone. At the other extreme is the literature on takeover defenses and the related literature that uses governance indices as measures of governance quality. Those empirical literatures are plagued by misunderstandings of how takeovers and takeover defenses work, and many results are therefore not as informative as they appear to be. In between is the literature on the impact of an independent board. Here, empiricists faced perhaps insurmountable challenges in proving causation, but nonetheless exposed informative associations.


Author(s):  
Jana ROZMARINOVÁ

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is one of the tools that can be used to support rational and objective decision-making in healthcare in the endeavour to contain public expenditure while maintaining the availability of healthcare interventions. The complex process of HTA often struggles to find its place in public policies and faces pressure from various stakeholders. HTA has existed since the 1970s and as a formal process has its roots in the United States. During the 1980s, HTA began to spread outside the US and over the next twenty years, reached almost all European countries, including some countries in Central Europe. The rise of HTA brought about an exponential increase in the empirical studies of HTA available in academic databases. This study reviews the available literature to analyse the development and research topics and the potential pitfalls of HTA implementation.


Subject Asylum-seekers and Canada. Significance After an uptick in asylum claims in recent months, including via the United States, asylum policy is likely to feature more heavily in Canadian state and federal politics. Impacts New migrant flows to Canada will likely be triggered as the US government reduces its grants of Temporary Protected Status. Quebec’s government will face off against the Ottawa federal government over responsibility for new migrant arrivals. Ottawa and Washington will likely eventually update the Safe Third Country Agreement, but this could require bargaining. Canada may invest more in border policing and associated technologies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (16) ◽  
pp. 8836-8844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asad L. Asad

Deportation has become more commonplace in the United States since the mid-2000s. Latin American noncitizens—encompassing undocumented and documented immigrants—are targeted for deportation. Deportation’s threat also reaches naturalized and US-born citizens of Latino descent who are largely immune to deportation but whose loved ones or communities are deportable. Drawing on 6 y of data from the National Survey of Latinos, this article examines whether and how Latinos’ deportation fears vary by citizenship and legal status and over time. Compared with Latino noncitizens, Latino US citizens report lower average deportation fears. However, a more complex story emerges when examining this divide over time: Deportation fears are high but stable among Latino noncitizens, whereas deportation fears have increased substantially among Latino US citizens. These trends reflect a growing national awareness of—rather than observable changes to—deportation policy and practice since the 2016 US presidential election. The article highlights how deportation or its consequences affects a racial group that the US immigration regime targets disproportionately.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Frelick

Executive Summary Temporary Protected Status (TPS) became part of the US protection regime in 1990 to expand protection beyond what had been available under the US Refugee Act of 1980, which had limited asylum to those who met the refugee definition from the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention. The TPS statute authorized the attorney general to designate foreign countries for TPS based on armed conflict, environmental disasters, and other extraordinary and temporary conditions that prevent designated nationals from returning in safety. While providing blanket protection that very likely has saved lives, TPS has nonetheless proven to be a blunt instrument that has frustrated advocates on both sides of the larger immigration debate. This article evaluates the purpose and effectiveness of the TPS statute and identifies inadequacies in the TPS regime and related protection gaps in the US asylum system. It argues that TPS has not proven to be an effective mechanism for the United States to protect foreigners from generalized conditions of danger in their home countries. It calls for changing the US protection regime to make it more responsive to the risks many asylum seekers actually face by creating a broader “complementary protection” standard and a more effective procedure for assessing individual protection claims, while reserving “temporary protection” for rare situations of mass influx that overwhelm the government’s capacity to process individual asylum claims. The article looks at alternative models for complementary protection from other jurisdictions, and shows how the US asylum and TPS system (in contrast to most other jurisdictions) fails to provide a mechanism for protecting arriving asylum seekers who do not qualify as refugees but who nevertheless would be at real risk of serious harm based on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment or because of situations of violence or other exceptional circumstances, including natural or human-made disasters or other serious events that disturb public order, that would threaten their lives or personal security. The article proposes that the United States adopt an individualized complementary protection standard for arriving asylum seekers who are not able to meet the 1951 Refugee Convention standard but who would face a serious threat to life or physical integrity if returned because of a real risk of (1) cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; (2) violence; or (3) exceptional situations, for which there is no adequate domestic remedy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-436
Author(s):  
Amy Elizabeth Chinnappa

AbstractThe Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) governed Iraq from 2003 following Resolution 1483 of the UN Security Council. This Resolution affirmed that Iraq was in a state of occupation and that there were occupying powers. The Resolution referred to the United States of America and the United Kingdom as ‘occupying powers under the unified command of the “Authority”’, the ‘Authority’ being the CPA. However, the legal status of the CPA and its relationship to the US (the focus of this article) is not entirely clear, both under US domestic law and international law. This lack of clarity could have significant implications for the US’s responsibility for the CPA’s conduct. As with private military companies, a CPA-style administration of territory could become a tool for states to quarantine their risk under the law of occupation. This article contends that the theory of occupation by proxy may help clarify the legal status of the CPA and its relationship to the US and could assist in closing the identified gap in responsibility. To support this argument, this article establishes a legal framework for the theory of occupation by proxy which is then applied to the CPA and US.


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
LEE ANN JACKSON ◽  
KYM ANDERSON

Over the past decade, the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) have implemented widely divergent regulatory systems to govern the production and consumption of genetically modified (GM) agricultural crops. In the US, many GM varieties have been commercially produced and marketed, while in the EU few varieties have been approved: a de facto moratorium limited EU production, import and domestic sale of most GM crops from late 1998 to April 2004, and since then strict labelling regulations and a slow approval process are having a similar effect. The EU policies have substantially altered trade flows and led in September 2003 to the WTO establishing a WTO Dispute Settlement panel to test the legality of European policy towards imports of GM foods. This paper seeks to better understand the economic forces behind the different regulatory approaches of the US and the EU. It uses a model of the global economy (GTAP) to examine empirically how GM biotechnology adoption would affect the economic welfare of both adopting and non-adopting countries in the absence of alternative policy responses to this technology, and in their presence. These results go beyond earlier empirical studies to indicate effects on real incomes of farm households, and suggest the EU moratorium on GM imports helps EU farmers even though it requires them to forego the productivity boost they could receive from the new GM biotechnology.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enock Ndawana

The nexus between foreign policy and the granting of asylum exists, but scholars have not yet reached a consensus regarding the nature of the relationship. This study examines the role of foreign policy in the granting of asylum using the case of Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the United States (US). It found that although other factors matter, foreign policy was central to the outcomes of Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the US. It asserts that explaining the outcomes of Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the US needs to go beyond the role of foreign policy and be nuanced because the case study rejects a monolithic understanding.


Refuge ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Silas W. Allard

The narrative that grounds the asylum policy of the United States portrays asylum seekers as passive objects of external forces. This narrative emerges from the complex interplay of exceptionality and victimization that characterizes the legal status and popular perception of the refugee. It is then read back onto the asylum seeker through a supereroga- tory asylum policy that is unable to recognize the moral demand made by the asylum seeker. The project this essay is drawn from seeks to challenge the policy of asylum as charity by interrogating alternative narratives grounded in the Hebrew Bible story of the Exodus and the Qu’ranic story of the Hijra. In these narratives, flight from oppression is portrayed as an act of moral agency, and the asylum seeker’s capacity as Other to make a moral demand on the Self emerges. Thus, I argue that an asylum policy informed by these alternative narratives needs must question its supererogatory assumptions.


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