Constraints, Resourcefulness, and Resilience in the Immigrant Latinx Community: Alternative Health Promoting Strategies for Diabetes Self-Management
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Despite major health reforms, American bureaucracy continues to deliberately exclude undocumented and recent immigrants from receiving coverage in the U.S healthcare system. Without accessible, affordable insurance, many Latinx immigrants with chronic illnesses, like diabetes, experience difficulties in securing adequate care to manage their condition. A great deal of health disparities research already highlights the disadvantages of this demographic's struggle to consistently obtain the recommended Western biomedical treatments for diabetes management, considering bureaucratic and financial hurdles. However, not enough attention has been given to how this Latinx demographic circumvents health constraints, in absence of these resources. Largely lacking is a more accurate portrayal of their lived experiences, one that reflects not only their struggle, but their resilience as chronically ill individuals who experience several dimensions of social inequality. How do people who face so much resistance employ resourcefulness, creativity, and cultural practices to holistically best manage their chronic condition?