Refugee & Immigrant Health

Trina Teacutter is the nursing supervisor for Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services. She spoke about how they have changed their tactics when it comes to vaccinations, and how “coming to people where they are” – though community-based vaccination clinics – is allowing them to reach more members of the community.

You can view this list of community vaccine clinics - here

Andrew Pham and Alice Yu are both members of the Mizzou Asian American Association.

They spoke about the challenges of rallying a historically disconnected Asian American community in the aftermath of recent hate crimes – and about how their generation might be the ones to overcome those challenges.

This piece was reported and produced by Hannah France.

Gail Reynoso and Matthew Huffman both work at the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, and Gail has worked with numerous refugee and immigrant women throughout her career.

They spoke about the additional barriers to care that exist for these immigrant and refugee survivors of violence.

This conversation does cover some tough subjects and a racial slur is included in the audio. It may not be appropriate for everyone.

Janelle Williams and JoAnne Marietta both work at Audrain County Crisis Intervention Service or ACCIS – a non-profit that provides resources to people in domestic and sexual violence situations.

Janelle is the executive director and JoAnne works as the equal access advocate. They spoke about the challenges their clients without legal immigration status have when pursuing legal action against abusive partners and when trying to obtain U visas, a nonimmigrant visa set aside for people who are victims of crimes and have suffered substantial abuse.

Sawsan Hasan and Nadeem Ramiydh both work for the Refugee & Immigration Services office in Columbia. Both of them work with refugees on a daily basis and are from Iraq themselves. They spoke about the need for more mental health care within the refugee and immigrant communities – especially when it comes to dealing with PTSD.