How Difficulties Faced by Immigrants in Australia Affect Their Health - Essay Example

Running Head: Describe the difficulties faced by immigrants to Australia and how this affects their health Nursing Your name Course name Instructor’s name Date of submission Ethical diversity is a common case in Australia for the fact that almost one quarter of the population was born overseas and more than half of this is immigrants born from non English speaking countries (Julian, 2009). These immigrants from overseas demonstrate good health on arrival and for some time in their living in Australia than Australia born population does. This better life is shown through the longer life expectancy they have, lower death, shunning risky lifestyle and less hospitalization rate. Immigrant’s health status varies according to where one was born, age, fluency in English, job satisfaction and socioeconomic status (Kliewer & Jones, 1997). Their illness patterns differ from those of residents in many ways. This is because they carry with the cultural practices and diets, which may be some risk factors that affect their health like the use of cereal, vegetables, fish and low consumption of alcohol. Unfortunately, their health decreases as they continue living in Australia (Young, 1991). In Australia, racism is a common occurrence among the immigrants. Race is a way used to define people in regard to their group signified by biological characteristics, ethnic which entails different cultural practices, socialization and education. Racism causes effects on the health of many immigrants (Karlsen & Nazroo, 2004). This vice is done directly through physical or psychological violations against the immigrants or in practiced in employments, education, and housing and immigration law, affecting the socioeconomic of the target group and thus impacting the health in a big way. Blood pressure is a common health issue that is commonly associated with racial harassment on immigrants (Krieger, 2000). Racism also is a common problem in the health services. This causes deterioration of immigrant’s health; this happens in health practices whereby access to services or providing adequate services is denied to individuals (Parekh, 2000). African immigrants are the worst affected by racism. Mostly they find in hard to get suitable and affordable housing for their big families. Getting a house is a problem for an African, this being attributed by shortage of public housing while private housing sector is very discriminative against African immigrants. Reports show that Africans are more marginalized compared to other population experiencing a hard time in the housing sector (Atem & Wilson, 2008).This results to complex mental complications which in Australians mental practitioners have found it hard to deal with (Reid & Trompf, 1990). This means that, mental cases from African refugees are not effectively dealt with due to scarcity of special mental health services. Unrecognized health conditions are also a common factor touching migrants in Australia, including lack of appropriate vaccination for preventable diseases (Tiong et al, 2006). Furthermore, they are unable to produce appropriate treatment for lack of specialized skills to deal with complex issues, language barrier and lack of appropriate cultural awareness and sensitivity (Menon & Faragher, 2000).Young people are torn between the two cultures; their original and the current Australian culture. Ethnicity is said to be a contested concept for there is no universal concept defining ethnicity (Yuval-Davis, 1991). However, it accounts for every measure of health and disease. In Australia, there are differing health statuses of immigrants of ethnic minorities within a certain ethnic group. As stated earlier, the health of immigrants is better than that of residents. Later it deteriorates due to some factors like low social economic status, i.e. issues related to racism, inability to speak English, discrimination, social isolation, and lack of recognition of qualifications or prolonged stress especially for refugees (Julian, 2009). Moreover, age and gender issues are also contributors to health problems in the society. For instance, immigrants with no ability to speak in English or has poor speaking abilities are very likely to suffer psychological distress in old age than the other population. In addition, women who are underrepresented in jobs report high rates of work related injuries and illnesses (Alcorso & Schofield, 1991). Australia has wide range of cultural diversity, defined by factors like class, gender, race, sexuality and ethnicity. Different cultures have different health illness understanding. For example, Vietnamese believe that physical and emotional illness is caused by imbalance of forces of am and duong, and that mental illness result from ancestral spirits who have been offended and are angry. Ethnic and racial discrimination is the most factors causing a lot of harm to the health of migrants. This is because it restricts them fro accessing resources required for their health (Julian, 2009). These resources include housing, education, employment just to mention but a few. Migrants who are victims of these factors are commonly associated with psychological illnesses and self esteem and finally they indulge to alcoholism, stress and depression all because of internalizing the negative evaluations and stereotypes (Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000). Discrimination produces negative emotions such as stress and fear, which afterwards affects the mental health, immune, endocrine and cardiovascular systems. Settlement is a common issue in the lives of immigrants in Australia. In this case, adaptation is seen as a difficult processes to immigrants most especially the children education in Australians schools. Settlement has been said to be a movement towards full participations and equitable access to Australia’s society and that immigrant’s expectations do diminish as time goes by (Shergold & Nicolaou, 1986). Non English speaking immigrants however have inequitable accesses to government services and programs; other scholar’s ague that settlement can only be complete and comfortable after 10 years are over; due to the economic conditions and inequitable access to employment incapacitates settlement processes and leaves it incomplete. Others ague that this may take a lot of time and at times it may never occur (Gray et al, 1991). The process of settlement seen as a long life process can result to undermining the immigrants problems with the notion that they are just simple settlement problems, resulting from ethnicity while else they may be as a result of lack of recognition of qualification obtain from their origin, or from the dangerous work they do in the unskilled jobs; in short, their issues are from their position in the labor market in Australia and not from their ethnicity; this most a times result to mental illnesses like depression. Settlement means that immigrants blend well with the economic, social structures and politics of the host society. Unfortunately this does not men that there is interaction of equity between this different cultural practices but it is an incorporation of the immigrants into the social relations characteristics of the Australians, i.e. merging them with the dominant social relations. Men are the most affected by migration settlements experiences more than women and children. This is due to the fact that women tend to maintain some continuity in life despite the impact of the disruption unlike men. Women maintain their primary responsibilities like child care and household chores, or even take up any opportunity that come their way in Australia. Men in the contrary who are traditional view as the breadwinners tend to loose this opportunity after settling in a new environment and in return this affects their sense of identity and self esteem. Those especially with advanced ages may result to being depressed, resentful and conflicts in the families due to changed dynamics. Assimilations stated that immigrants are people with no special problem. This in the long run resulted to problems of many people being unresolved. When there were demand on service provider resulted to insinuating that migrants are problem prone people many of which are heath issues. Rapid assimilations brought about multiculturalism which was aimed at recognizing and addressing the special needs of distinct cultures. However, this did not address the issue of social inequality but dealt with cultural tolerance. Luckily, this received a blow after the National agenda for multicultural Australia emphasized on removing the obstacle faced by the migrants ranging from race, ethnicity, culture, religion, language, age , gender or where one was born ( DIMIA, 2003). However, most of the institutions in Australia society are based on British models which mean that there is no accommodation of multicultural society and to the disadvantage of the heath care of the migrant minorities in Australia. It is worth noting that, despite the cultural diversity, Australia is monocultural in terms of social institutions such as legal system, political systems, educational institutions and professions and mostly on the Anglo Australian’s power structure (Castel, 1988). This is extended to the English language being the only language used in the line of power. Mono-linguistic is a common case in Australia which immigrants find hard to cope with. In the theory of adaptation government policies are supposed to incorporate the wellbeing of the immigrants but surprisingly they do not concur. For example, immigrants who are not conversant with English language are unable to get employment in Salvadorians street sellers for there are no unskilled jobs and therefore they relay on welfare benefits. Immigrants in Australia are spread throughout the class structure in Australia whereby the labor force is divided in ethnicity and gender sections. In this case, Australian born and post war Anglophone male migrants are dominants in the primary labour markets while non Anglophone migrant woman are concentrated in the lower jobs in the manufacturing industries like clothing, footwear and textile fields (Collins, 1984). There is high rate of unemployment among the refugees compared to Australian born (Viviani et al, 1993). This is because they lack the documentations and /or English language skills to get a skilled labour. These immigrants most of the times suffer psychological for the rejection and segregation the experience in the societies. Language barrier plays a big role in heath deterioration of immigrants. For instance, those coming from war torn countries are most likely to suffer from mental illness but incase they are not conversant with English language; this is a big blow to their health. While to the other communities this illness is highly stigmatized. This being the matter when mental heath problem is confidential within the families due to stigma; patients prefer speaking to those familiar with their native language rather than opening up to English speaking physicians (Chevannes 2002). The mental health of the migrant touches most of the migrants in Australia. This is because of the acculturative stress through the process of relocation and adoption (Murphy, 1973). This stress is accelerated by the relation between risk factors and coping factors. The mental health declines due to discrimination, socioeconomic breakdown, physical health, and elevate expectations. Discrimination refers to them not being included in resources and opportunities in the host society (Kaplan & Marks, 1990) Immigrants mostly elderly, children and women suffer extreme health issues due to poor socioeconomic status and low level of education amplified by lack of English language and cultural strongholds. (Jones, 1993). This is because they are not capable of making staunch decisions concerning their health due to lack of knowledge of any existing services (Plunkett & Quine, 1996). The old suffer isolation and loneliness to an extent of contacting chronic mental illness (Thomas & Balnaves, 1993).moreover social class also affect in a big way the presence of health issues in the lives of these migrants. For instance those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have higher rates of having mental problems more than those from higher socio groups (Minas, 1990). Due to the economic hardship encountered by these immigrants, they tend to indulge into some vices and get into unskilled works which later affect their life span. Men’s life expectancy is lower than that of women. This is because of the gender difference associated with indulgence. Men affected by stress will indulge in alcohol and smoking which will cause damages to their health. Moreover, they get employment in unskilled jobs which have high injury risks. Conclusion Health statistics record that immigrant’s health is better before they start living in Australia and deteriorates after they continue living in Australia. This is contributed by consumption of better diets and lifestyles that are not risky to the health status. The reason of health deterioration is due to aftermath experiences like settlement experiences which prove hard to some immigrant. Some social factors also play a big role in the diminishing of their health. Racism for instance refuses them a chance to get health services they dire need and discrimination refuse them to get quality services as any other person in the population. The government services and programs are at times not beneficial to the welfare of the immigrants because of language barrier. More over immigrants who are not conversant with English language has higher chances of suffering incase there is no one to interpreted their language. Different cultures have differing interpretation and understanding of illnesses. For instance mental illness in some communities is highly stigmatized. This results to mental heath problem being confidential within the families due to stigma from the other population. Social classes also affect their health in a big way. If their origin was from a low socio class, they have higher chances of having mental related illnesses compared to those from higher socio classes. This therefore means that the socioeconomic situation of a certain place contributes either negatively or positively to the health of the community. African immigrants are most likely to suffer racism in Australia. This is mostly experienced in housing and employment sectors. They also suffer complex mental illness which calls for specialized attention which sometimes is not available in Australia. When this is the case, their problems are rarely solved due to scarcity of medical practitioners and medicine which is capable of dealing with their complex condition. The conditions of body and mind are social constructions and therefore any condition varies over time and across the cultures. When different cultures are understood, then health status of these immigrants will never be a great deal in Australia. References Alcorso, C , Schofield T. (1991) The National Non-English Speaking Background Women’s Health Strategy. Commonwealth-State Council on NESB Women’s Issues, Canberra, pp. 40-89 Atem, P & Wilson, L., (2008) Housing pathways for African refugees in Australia: towards an understanding of African refugee housing issues, pp. 1-18 : Ethnicity, class and gender in Australia. Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, pp. 7-32 Castles (1988) Mistaken identity: Multiculturalism and the demise of nationalism in Australia. Sydney: Pluto Press,pp. 11-44 Chevannes, M. 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