Refugee Health Care

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction and Overview

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Introduction to Refugees

      • Kelly Hebrank

      Pages 3-11

   3. Culturally Appropriate Care

      • Aniyizhai Annamalai

      Pages 13-18

   4. Overview of Domestic Screening

      • Aniyizhai Annamalai, Paul L. Geltman

      Pages 19-27

3. Primary Care

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 29-29

      PDF

   2. Immunizations and Refugees

      • Erika Schumacher

      Pages 31-51

   3. Tuberculosis

      • Andrew T. Boyd

      Pages 53-62

   4. Intestinal Parasites

      • James Wallace, Anne E. P. Frosch, William Stauffer

      Pages 63-77

   5. Viral Hepatitis

      • Douglas J. Pryce, Asha M. J. Madhar

      Pages 79-93

   6. Malaria

      • Kristina Krohn, William Stauffer

      Pages 95-102

   7. HIV and Other Sexually Transmitted Infections: Testing and Treatment Considerations for Refugees

      • Sachin Jain, Jennifer Adelson-Mitty

      Pages 103-113

   8. Chronic Disease Management in Refugees

      • Peter Cronkright, Astha K. Ramaiya

      Pages 115-145

4. Mental Health

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 147-147

      PDF

   2. Risk Factors and Prevalence of Mental Illness in Refugees

      • Paula Zimbrean

      Pages 149-162

   3. Mental Health Screening

      • Susan Heffner Rhema, Amber Gray, Sasha Verbillis-Kolp, Beth Farmer, Michael Hollifield

      Pages 163-171

   4. Treatment of Mental Illness

      • Aniyizhai Annamalai, Maya Prabhu

      Pages 173-180

   5. Torture and Refugees

      • Mara Rabin, Cynthia Willard

      Pages 181-192

5. Special Groups

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 193-193

      PDF

   2. Refugee Women’s Health

      • Geetha Fink, Tara Helm, Kaya Belknap, Crista E. Johnson-Agbakwu

      Pages 195-213

Refugees arrive in the United States from different parts of the world and their numbers increase every year. Refugees undergo a medical screening soon after arrival, as recommended by the U.S. Department of State, and it is often primary care practitioners or psychiatrists who usually evaluate these patients at this first visit. Though physicians receive a variable amount of training in cross-cultural medicine, virtually none is in the area of refugee evaluations. Refugee evaluations are different from routine patient evaluations in several significant ways: 1) They are new immigrants from countries where the disease epidemiology is different from the U.S.; 2) Certain infectious disease processes need to be ruled out upon arrival to prevent the spread of communicable diseases; 3) The prevalence of mental health disorders in refugees is higher than the local population; 4) The medical and psychiatric health problems of refugees are often caused or affected by their past experience with trauma and their current acculturation difficulties; and 5) Significant cultural barriers can arise in the accurate evaluation and treatment of these refugees. Books on refugee health usually are written from ecological and public health perspectives and address generic refugee population issues. There are very few clinical textbooks, and most focus only on mental health. Refugee Health Care is a practical guide providing focused information for busy primary care practitioners, and many of the recommendations in the book apply to all immigrants. This concise pocketbook reviews medical and psychiatric conditions that are essential to know in the evaluation and treatment of refugees.

• asylum
• infectious disease
• refugee
• refugee health
• trauma
• infectious diseases

From the book reviews:

“This book draws attention to the common problems experienced by displaced populations and the unique aspects of caring for these patients. … The audience is vast, from those who travel to care for displaced persons on a permanent or medical mission basis, to those primary care clinicians who will care for resettled refugees in developed countries, to those policy makers who must incorporate these populations into planning documents. … photographs, tables, and figures help make the concepts easy to understand. (Vincent F. Carr, Doody’s Book Reviews, July, 2014)

• Depts. of Internal Medicine & Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, USA

  Aniyizhai Annamalai

Aniyizhai Annamalai M.D. is assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine. She is the director of the Yale Refugee Clinic, and supervises both Internal Medicine and Psychiatry residents at the clinic. She practices both Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and is interested in the delivery of integrated care. Her interest in global health is centered on refugee populations with a specific focus on disease manifestations across different cultures. She has presented workshops at national and international conferences on issues related to refugees. She was an invited speaker at the North American Refugee Healthcare Conference in June 2012. She teaches a monthly lecture on refugee screening guidelines for the Yale Traditional Internal Medicine Residency Program.

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