The 2024 Presidential Task Force on Immigration and Health was appointed to focus on the U.S. immigration and health context, reflected in its membership, topics addressed, and literature reviewed. This scope was intended to facilitate coverage of the broad, heterogeneous immigration scholarship in the United States, resulting in recommendations targeted to the U.S. context. However, the Task Force believes that much of the information and many of the recommendations put forth may be transferable to varied global contexts. Additionally, though the report does not focus explicitly on refugees, many immigrants are also refugees and are therefore featured in much of the scholarship reviewed.
Executive summary
This report updates the 2012 APA report, Crossroads: The Psychology of Immigration in the New Century (PDF, 1.35MB)opens in new window
Part 1 describes changes to the context of immigration in the United States since the seminal Crossroads report, reviewing trends in the foreign-born population in the United States, including countries of origin, legal statuses, and the social, political, and cultural context of their reception.
Part 2 begins with a brief historical review of the discriminatory immigration policies in the United States before addressing recent innovative advances in relevant psychological science and conceptual approaches since the Crossroads report. Authors pay particular attention to areas that have dominated the last decade of scholarship related to immigrant health in the United States, namely, the socioecological model, intersectionality, a population health framework, social and cultural determinants of health lenses, decolonial and liberation approaches, attachment theory, and trauma scholarship. They incorporate individual, communal, and societal factors, stressing how these intersecting levels of analysis impact immigrant health.
Part 3 applies this updated science to the current state of and future goals for psychological practice, research, training, and advocacy with immigrants, devoting significant attention to the importance of working directly with immigrant populations to ensure needs are accurately understood and collaboratively addressed. Service provision recommendations include developing a diverse, culturally competent workforce and providing wraparound care in convenient locations; research recommendations include emphasizing cultural humility and implementing innovative, decolonized research design; education recommendations include incentivizing immigrant-background psychologists and advancing culturally relevant knowledge in trainees; and advocacy recommendations include promoting immigrant-friendly policies and supporting funding for community-based participatory research.
Part 4 closes with broad, forward-looking conclusions to guide APA and our profession more broadly in the changing immigrant context.
