Creating Conditions to Support Healthy People: State Policies that Affect the Health of Undocumented Immigrants and their Families

Creating Conditions to Support Healthy People attempts to rank states according to their record in promoting the health of undocumented immigrants. The authors consider five areas to be important "social determinants of health," which they define as "the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work, and age - and that impact immigrants' ability to live healthy lives. " The five policy areas are: the availability of public health and welfare benefits, such as children's health insurance, prenatal care, and eligibility for SNAP; access to higher education; labor and employment practices, such as the inclusion of undocumented workers in workers' compensation laws; the availability of driver's licenses; and state legislation limiting participation in the federal Secure Communities enforcement program. The states with the highest scores were California (9), Illinois (7), Washington (4), Colorado (2), and Texas (2). The states with the lowest scores were Ohio (-7), West Virginia (-6), Mississippi (-6), Indiana (-6), Arizona, (-6) and Alabama (-6).  (Abstract courtesy Nicholas Montalto, PhD.)

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