Migrant Workers Health

Words: 612
Pages: 3

In the US, the working and housing conditions of migrant farm workers are hierarchically organized according to race, ethnicity and citizenship. Being a reflection of the “structural vulnerability”, this labor structure is attributed to all forms of discrimination within the society, the global pursuit of capital, and the deregulated free-market competition. Meanwhile, it further results in tremendous health disparities and inequalities, leaving the Latin American migrant workers with poverty, exploitation, low social status, little power and poor health. Via exploring the social, economic and political factors, this chapter reveals the interactive ways in which the dysfunctional medical education and health system, accompanied by subtle yet substantially existing racism, have compromised the quality of care as well as the health outcome. The author firstly points out that the health professionals in migrant clinics usually fail to include neither social determinants of health nor the “structural …show more content…
Therefore, these doctors tend to ask migrant patients questions like ”Where does it hurt?” instead of “What is the matter with you?”; they rarely recognize the fact that most migrants are forced to suffer the unhealthy lifestyle and not powerful enough to freely alter the situation; they also get used to giving simple/general suggestions based on their own assumptions instead of individual patients’ needs. One instance from the chapter is that a clinician blamed the knee and back pain on the patient’s “incorrect” posture when he was bending and picking berries and unhealthy sleeping habits, without understanding that the context of labor hierarchy and fierce economic competition primarily compromised this patient’s health with poor working and living condition in the first