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Migration, Globalization and Public Health

Nowadays globalization is spreading all over the world and more and more people from less developed countries tend to immigrate to economically stable, peaceful ones. United States is a bright example of a developed country to which millions of refugees each year aspire to flee. However, America can not stand such amount of immigrants because that leads to major problems for native citizens.

There are different categories of immigrants. They can be legal immigrants, official refugees or undocumented residents (Gavagan, 1998). Besides, all immigrants are divided according to their nationality. All people can bring dangerous transmissible diseases with them to America. It can include tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis B, malaria or diphtheria. But sometimes people come from countries which are at war; they have experienced tortures and violence. And such people represent no danger to others. They just seek for an asylum and a safe life. After being diagnosed, they can prove to have mental disorders and weak psychological state.

According to statistics, almost 50% of immigrants have infectious diseases. Different types of immigrants have a different impact on public health. For example, an immigrant from Asia is more likely to have hepatitis B. Latin American immigrant should be screened for leprosy as all immigrants from high- risk areas (Gavagan, 1998). As a rule, all potential immigrants who want to enter US have to undergo a physical examination, but that does not include those, who come to the country illegally and undocumented. In such cases, people may be living in the country for several years not knowing about their diseases.

Regarding all said above it can be concluded that legal immigrants and official refugees are of less harm to public health because they either have been examined before coming to US, or do not have any infections at all. In the meantime, illegal and undocumented immigrants can not be controlled and thus represent potential danger for themselves and US citizens.