Louisville health center expands COVID-19 testing for immigrant, refugee groups

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Family Health Centers is expanding its drive-thru COVID-19 testing operations to reach more immigrants and refugees.

Two weeks ago, Family Health Centers opened a drive-thru testing site at the Americana Community Center, which is typically where refugees come for initial screenings upon arriving in Louisville. Since the borders have been closed, the community center is being repurposed to help with the city's pandemic response.

"We make sure refugees have a healthy start to their life here in the Unites States," said Liz Edghill, Family Health Centers' manager of refugee and immigrant services. "We have so many patients that walk to us here, and this is home for them. This is a safe place, because we provide interpreters and understanding."

There have already been virus-related casualties in Louisville's refugee population, Edghill said, so it's critical that testing and COVID-19 information is easily accessible to these groups. Interpreters are available to help patients over the phone, and the nonprofit is working with the city to make sure more information is translated into other languages for these communities.

"For a long time and in recent years, our refugee and immigrant populations have had this sense of fear and unwelcome," Edghill said. "So it's something we strive for really hard, to show everyone is welcome. And we mean that. We have long been one of Louisville's safety net providers. So we serve people regardless of insurance status, regardless of immigration status, regardless of ability to pay."

The nonprofit community health center is also offering COVID-19 testing at all of its locations. Totaling all the sites up, 365 tests have been administered as of Thursday morning. Of those tests, 73 were positive for COVID-19, 250 were negative, 39 are still pending and three were not processed because of transportation issues.

As Family Health Centers' leaders were looking at the data, they noticed the Latino and Hispanic communities were being heavily impacted by the virus. Although 26% of all the tests administered were counted as Hispanic and Latino, Edghill said they made up 51% of the positive test results.

"So it's a pretty big impact on that community," she said. "It's not their fault. They're not doing anything differently. Or that there's any racial or ethnic reason why their rates should be higher."

Edghill said socioeconomic factors come into play, which also impacts any access to health care among refugee groups. Many multi-generational immigrant families live together in smaller apartments, making it difficult to isolate or practice social distancing. She said it's also very likely that working family members feel the need to keep working and don't realize they're infected until they wind up extremely sick in the hospital.

"And it's very likely they're in essential jobs that are still working," Edghill said. "They're using public transportation and very crowded in that way. And these are things that probably other immigrant and refugee populations are experiencing."

Edghill believes the positive rates will shift and change as testing is expanded to encompass more people and groups. Based on data so far, the center decided to add a second drive-thru location May 18 in Fairdale. Right now, COVID-19 tests are only being offered to those who are Family Health Centers patients, showing symptoms and scheduled by their provider.

Family Health Centers is also documenting what languages are spoken among those getting tested, in order to help provide better outreach and translation. So far, the center has recorded the following languages: Albanian, Amaharic, Arabic, Burmese, Dari, Karen, Napali, Somali, Spanish, Castilian, Swahili, Tigrinya.

More international resources and information about COVID-19 can be found on the Americana Community Center's website.