The state of health care services for mobile poor populations: history, current status, and future challenges.

T definition of migrant appearing above includes elements from the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Migrants1 and from the American Heritage Dictionary.2 For many in the United States, the term migrant worker conjures an image of an immigrant farm laborer. However, most migrants participate in multiple industries in addition to agriculture, generally low-wage and often high-risk occupations such as construction, poultry and meat processing, and domestic services. In this discussion we are concerned with this broad group of the mobile working poor, some of whom could also be referred to as farmworkers, as people who are homeless, or as undocumented immigrants. The migrant workers of the United States in 2010 are members of diverse populations moving rapidly between sending and receiving locations. The migrant’s temporary social and physical environments affect this or her health and well-being.3 The occupations engaged in by migrants, as well as the fundamental factor of mobility itself, combine to create a lifestyle that carries multiple health risks. A review of the history and current status of health care services for United States migrant workers provides a glimpse into the efforts of a few to tend to the unique needs of an otherwise disenfranchised population.