Access to Life: Advanced Heart Failure Therapies for Undocumented Immigrants

Show simplified metadata
dc.ada.noteFor Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.edu
dc.contributor.advisorTuohy, Brian
dc.creatorBrenner, Caitlyn
dc.creator.orcid0000-0003-3950-0419
dc.date.accessioned2025-07-14T16:38:57Z
dc.date.available2025-07-14T16:38:57Z
dc.date.issued2025-05
dc.date.updated2025-06-23T04:05:31Z
dc.description.abstractThe U.S. healthcare system systematically excludes undocumented immigrants (UIs) from life-sustaining treatments for advanced heart failure (AHF), creating profound ethical violations and health disparities. This thesis demonstrates how excluding UIs from AHF therapies breaches justice, autonomy, beneficence, and non-maleficence by restricting access to mechanical circulatory support, inotropic therapy, and heart transplants. Analysis of Medicaid restrictions, legal barriers, and a representative patient case study reveals how current policies institutionalize preventable harm. Contrasting these failures with successful state-level expansions for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), the work proposes actionable solutions to redress inequities exacerbated by immigration policies. The findings underscore that structural reform is both ethically imperative and financially viable, with critical implications for public health, equity, and clinician moral distress. This thesis calls for immediate policy changes guided by the ESRD model and further research to address healthcare exclusion.
dc.description.degreeM.A.
dc.description.departmentUrban Bioethics
dc.format.extent47 pages
dc.identifier.filenameBrenner_temple_0225M_16060.pdf
dc.identifier.proqst
dc.identifier.urihttps://scholarshare.temple.edu/handle/20.500.12613/11088
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherTemple University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartofTheses and Dissertations
dc.rightsIN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available.
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subjectMedical ethics
dc.subjectHealth sciences
dc.subjectPublic health
dc.subjectAdvanced heart failure
dc.subjectHealth equity
dc.subjectJustice
dc.subjectUndocumented immigrants
dc.subjectUrban bioethics
dc.titleAccess to Life: Advanced Heart Failure Therapies for Undocumented Immigrants
dc.typeText
dc.type.genreThesis/Dissertation
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Brenner_temple_0225M_16060.pdf
Size:
524.12 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.1 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
Theses and Dissertations