Level of distress, somatisation and beliefs on health-disease in newly arrived immigrant patients attended in primary care centres in Catalonia and definition of professional competences for their most effective management: PROMISE Project

BACKGROUND: Newly arrived immigrant patients who frequently use primary health care resources have difficulties in verbal communication. Also, they have a system of beliefs related to health and disease that makes difficult for health care professionals to comprehend their reasons for consultation, especially when consulting for somatic manifestations. Consequently, this is an important barrier to achieve optimum care to these groups. The current project has two main objectives: 1. To define the different stressors, the level of distress perceived, and its impact in terms of discomfort and somatisation affecting the main communities of immigrants in our area, and 2. To identify the characteristics of cross-cultural competence of primary health care professionals to best approach these reasons for consultation. METHODS/DESIGN: It will be a transversal, observational, multicentre, qualitative-quantitative study in a sample of 980 people from the five main non-European Union immigrant communities residing in Catalonia: Maghrebis, Sub-Saharans, Andean South Americans, Hindustanis, and Chinese. Sociodemographic data, level of distress, information on the different stressors and their somatic manifestations will be collected in specific questionnaires. Through a semi-structured interview and qualitative methodology, it will be studied the relation between somatic manifestations and particular beliefs of each group and how these are associated with the processes of disease and seeking for care. A qualitative methodology based on individual interviews centred on critical incidents, focal groups and in situ questionnaires will be used to study the cross-cultural competences of the professionals. DISCUSSION: It is expected a high level of chronic stress associated with the level of somatisations in the different non-European Union immigrant communities. The results will provide better knowledge of these populations and will improve the comprehension and the efficacy of the health care providers in prevention, communication, care management and management of resources

Las tropas norteamericanas y la geografía del saqueo : América Latina, Mercosur y Paraguay en la mira

En la selección de lecturas que Santiago Millán presenta en este compendio, podrá encontrarse suficiente información sobre las verdades que se esconden detrás de la "lucha contra el narcotráfico y el terrorismo" con la que los "halcones" del gobierno norteamericano pretenden camuflar el saqueo de nuestras riquezas continentales. Sin embargo, poco se escribió aún sobre la perentoria necesidad del capitalismo norteamericano de hacer un "ajuste espacio-temporal", ajuste que busca continuar oxigenando al sector financiero, hegemónico, del capitalismo. La idea es de David Harvey quien sostiene que el capitalismo hoy en día es incapaz de "acumular a través de la reproducción ampliada sobre una base sustentable", lo cual "ha sido acompañado por crecientes intentos de acumular mediante la desposesión"

De-Bordering Justice in the Age of International Migrations: An Introduction

This chapter introduces and discusses the concepts that are in-depth articulated in the volume. International migration is presented here as a test bench where the normative limits of institutional order, its contradictions and internal tensions are examined. Migrations allows to call into question classical political categories and models. Pointing at walls and fences as tools that reproduce enormous inequalities within the globalized neo-liberal system, this chapter presents the conceptual tensions and contradictions between migration policies and global justice. We challenge the conceptualization of justice as a relationship between citizens of the same country and the State and argue that, in our globalized world, nation-state cannot constitute the basic unit of the theories of justice. We argue that an integral approach that includes the complex and interconnected forms of structural inequalities and transcends the borders of national sovereign states is required. Avoiding the methodological nationalism and the exclusionary biases that inform current migration and border control policies, this chapter finally places attention on the most marginalized subjects of the migration chain: migrant women workers. We point out the importance of addressing transnational structural inequalities and bringing social reproduction to the center of global justice theories