<p><strong>Refugee medical screening: fear for ourselves or worry about their health?</strong>            Refugee’s world day (June 20) passed with shaking news and bittering statistics about the amount of rescue needed around the world. According to the United Nation 2014 Global Trends, 59.5 million individuals were internally displaced , ended up in the camps , or entered another countries to seek protection from war, violence , persecution ,conflicts ,or other life-threatening situation by the end of the last year. Among this population, 19.5 million were refugees. American region only hosted 769,000 refugees, (5%) of refugees globally, last year(1).   Several rescue center in the United States is helping with resettlement process for the newcomers. Addressing their primary needs to survive in the new world includes helping with access to housing, job, social benefits, decrease language barrier, cultural adaptation, and health care.</p><p>           Coming from the war, Living in the refugee camps for a long time, running away from home, stress and losing everything, all leads to have several different physical and mental health problems for this population. As a result, access to the appropriate level of health care is one of the most priority for this community. According to the CDC guidelines each refugee recommended to have two health screening visits, One overseas before entering the U.S, and one during the first 30 days of arrival. For most of these individuals, post arrival medical visit is the first and sometimes mostly the only healthcare visit they have for long times.This screening mainly includes physical exam, chest X-ray, blood test, immunization, communicable disease screening like Tuberculosis, HIV, and hepatitis B. Looking carefully at the details of this screening indicates that it is targeted to identify and prevent   risk of any infectious diseases threatening individuals and the community. Although this screening is helpful for chronic and communicable disease prevention, there is a whole in the offered services. According to the research in Masacusset dental issue, is the first health concern in the refugee’s children and the second health problems in adults(2). For these individuals, dental care is as needed or sometimes in higher priority than Tuberculosis tests and follow ups. However, as the dental pain does not affect their communities, no one worries about that. The problem here is some of these individuals have not been in the dental office before in their whole life. In the other hand, they may not get a chance to visit a dentist in the U.S even after a year of staying in the United States. Some of these individuals only visit the dentist when they have severe teeth pain ,which will mostly end up as teeth extraction.</p><p>           World Refugee day is a good time to look back and identify the unmet needs of this resettled population in our country. Along with obligatory immunization, chest X-ray, and TB test, it is necessary to have dental visit added to the health screening in early arrival time. This dental visit will give them a chance to be evaluated and referred for appropriate procedures before their toothache turn out to an early teeth extraction in the age of 20-30.</p><p> </p><p>References :</p><p>1-World at War: Global Trends, Forced displaced in 2014. , 2015, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.</p><p>2- Cote S, Geltman P, Nunn M, Lituri K, Henshaw M, Garcia RI. Dental caries of refugee children compared with US children. Pediatrics 2004;114(6):e733-40</p><p><br /> </p>