OBJECTIVE To identify the main strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of the Ecuador-Peru "peri-border" health care program and to analyze the legislative, managerial, and organizational arrangements adopted to integrate the two country's national health systems in the border area. METHODS A descriptive, qualitative case study was carried out using three complementary methods: literature revie...

BACKGROUND In Burma, severe human rights violations, civil conflict, and the persecution of ethnic and linguistic minority populations has resulted in the displacement of millions of people, many of whom now reside as internally displaced populations (IDPs) in Eastern Burma or in Thailand as refugees or undocumented migrants. Use of the intra-uterine device (IUD), a non-user dependent and highl...

The comprehensive report, Healthy Border 2010, identified reduction of motor vehicle crash death rates by 20% in Mexico and 25% in the US as priority targets. The report also identified seatbelt usage as the first approach to reach these targets. Our study measured seatbelt usage in a cross-border context and compared seatbelt usage with other areas in North America. Suggestions are made for co...

INTRODUCTION Human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is one of the most prevalent infectious diseases in the border region of Mexico due to the flow of migrants under desperate conditions, encouraging casual and unprotected sex. Since this has become a binational public health problem, it is important to understand the factors that predict these sexual behavi...

BACKGROUND The militarization of the US-Mexico border region exacerbates the process of "Othering" Latino immigrants - as "illegal aliens." The internalization of "illegality" can manifest as a sense of "undeservingness" of legal protection in the population and be detrimental on a biopsychological level. OBJECTIVE We explore the impacts of "illegality" among a population of US citizen and pe...

Immigration laws that militarize communities may exacerbate ethno-racial health disparities. We aimed to document the prevalence of and ways in which immigration enforcement policy and militarization of the US-Mexico border is experienced as everyday violence. Militarization is defined as the saturation of and pervasive encounters with immigration officials including local police enacting immig...

This analysis reviews cooperation between the four border states of the United States of America (Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas) and international partners in Mexico with regard to type 2 diabetes among Latinos. Binational cooperation, academic collaboration, preventative health initiatives, and efforts to improve health care access for the border population are highlighted. This m...

OBJECTIVE To provide regional, state, and local public health officials a conceptual framework and checklist for assessing regional public health emergency preparedness, specifically in regard to cross-border public health preparedness needs. METHODS The project had four phases that are as follows: defining the scope, conducting a literature review, soliciting expert opinion, and creating the...

Millions of people live on the U.S.-Mexico border, drawn by employment opportunities from industry and agriculture, and booming growth is expected to continue in the coming decades. But the influx of people has long outstripped the capacity of border towns and cities to provide for their citizens, and a large percentage of the population lives in sprawling, underserviced shantytowns. Although i...

OBJECTIVE To examine the association between diabetes-related lower-extremity amputation (LEA) and ethnicity, age, source of payment, geographic location, diabetes severity, and health condition in adults with diabetes mellitus type 2 living in border and non-border counties in Texas, United States of America, and to assess intra-border region geographic differences in post-LEA treatment. MET...