Minn Med. 1996 May; 79(5): 26-30.

Cultural barriers to health care for refugees and immigrants. Providers' perceptions.

Ohmans P, Garrett C, Treichel C.

Center for Cross-Cultural Health based in Minneapolis, USA.

What are the barriers to good health care for immigrants who have come to the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area since the early 1980s? Why do immigrants often delay or avoid seeking mainstream health care services? The research described here examines these questions from the perspective of nonimmigrant health care providers in the Twin Cities. The 24 metropolitan health care providers interviewed in our study confirmed the existence of significant barriers to health care-barriers that probably differ from those experienced by nonimmigrant patients. Refugees and immigrants from other cultures had varying culturally based reactions to Western-style, allopathic medicine-some positive and many negative. Providers and administrators must consider these barriers when serving a growing population of immigrant patients.