Latinx and immigrants have been show to underutilize safety-net programs, which has been partially attributed to the local and federal immigration enforcement and policy environment. Recently, however, communities across the US have implemented so-called sanctuary policies to promote immigrant belonging, the majority of which limit the collusion between local criminal justice systems and ICE- we refer to these as entanglement-blocking policies. Dr. Martinez-Cardoso will present an overview of the range of entanglement and entanglement-blocking policies that shape the local immigration landscape.  In addition, she will present her team’s work compiling an entanglement-policy index in the New York Metropolitan Area, and it’s association with safety-net program utilization.

Aresha Martinez-Cardoso is an interdisciplinary public health researcher and Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. Her research integrates theoretical perspectives from the social sciences with epidemiological methods in public health to examine how social inequality in the US shapes population health, with a particular focus on the health of racial/ethnic groups and immigrants. Martinez-Cardoso’s work interrogates how race and social inequities have been deeply embedded into our nation’s culture and institutions and traces the biosocial mechanisms by which these inequities get “under the skin” to affect health across the lifecourse. Currently, Dr. Martinez-Cardoso’s research agenda is guided by three major lines of inquiry (1) conceptualizing structural racism and its impact on health (2) studying the biopsychosocial mechanisms by which lifecourse conditions shape health, and (3) empirically measuring the links between social inequities and health using diverse data sources. Martinez-Cardoso holds a PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan, and a MS in Community Health Sciences from UCLA.

This event is co-hosted with the Global Migration Center.