“If you eat an apple, where does it come from? Who picks that apple?” asks Dr. Edson Chipalo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at Lewis University. The author of recent publications focusing on immigration and well-being posed this question to highlight the need to support migrants.  

Chipalo emphasizes that these individuals contribute to the country while they endure unique challenges and vulnerabilities due to their immigrant status. Migrants and refugees usually come from unsafe situations leaving behind jobs, healthcare, and family to come to a country in which they do not know anyone and lack a support network. Also, they have limited access to necessary resources, such as medical coverage and livable wages.  

In the research study, “Factors Associated with Receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Among Newly Resettled Refugees in the United States,” Chipalo and fellow researchers determined that providing language and interpretation services can help them overcome language barriers to healthcare. 

Chipalo hopes once an adequate educational, financial, and healthcare support system is in place, it will lead to increased respect and understanding amongst people from different countries and states. The dialogue could focus on the economic and cultural contributions of thriving migrants in the United States.   

As an immigrant from Zambia, Chipalo understands these unique challenges in the United States and abroad. As a world traveler who has lived in South Africa and Scotland, among other places, he has an easier time communicating, working, empathizing, and connecting with others. The social work scholar has discovered that these experiences developed into multiple perspectives and ways of thinking about life.  

Chipalo’s scholarship includes over 20 articles discussing how trauma, racial and ethnic differences, and immigration statuses impact people’s emotional, social, mental, and physical health. Currently, Dr. Edson Chipalo is looking back on his childhood by actively researching children’s refugee and immigration statuses in relation to violence, maltreatment, and economic hardship.