Editorial—A Window of Opportunity Is Opening to Improve Immigrant Health: A Research and Practice Agenda

Steve Wallace, Ph.D., one of the UCLA Coordination & Evaluation Center’s principal investigators, co-wrote an editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health called “A Window of Opportunity Is Opening to Improve Immigrant Health: A Research and Practice Agenda.” Wallace, who is also associate director at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor of community health sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health, wrote the piece with his colleague Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young, Ph.D., MPH, a faculty associate at the center and assistant professor of public health at UC Merced. The editorial is available to read on the journal website.

Summary: In the March 2021 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the authors use a public health lens to discuss the Biden administration's opportunity to reshape immigration policy — and thus, immigrant health — by canceling anti-immigrant executive actions of the Trump era and avoiding political compromises of the Obama era. Using a structural racism lens, the authors outline principles and priorities to guide public health researchers, practitioners, and advocates as they stand with immigrants to achieve health equity.