Managed Care

Just how managed care impacts immigrant health or how the facts regarding immigrant health have implications for managed care practices are not issues easily analyzed. One challenge comes from neglect by researchers of the conjunction of the two. Managed care has been extensively studied, and excellent reviews exist. While far from comprehensive, an empirical basis also exists for profiling health-related characteristics of immigrant populations, including modest attention to issues potentially related to managed care, such as access, costs, and quality of care. Nevertheless, investigations reporting on both immigrant status and managed care remain very much the exception. A second, more far-reaching challenge comes from the complexity, variety, and constantly changing character of the social phenomena falling under the “managed care” and “immigrant” labels which, we discuss in what follows.