Sec. 2. Findings

192 words·~1 min read·/bill/117/s/2570/is/section-2

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Congress makes the following findings: The United States-Mexico border is an interdependent and dynamic region of approximately 15,000,000 residents and millions of border crossings each year, with significant and unique public health challenges. These challenges include low rates of health insurance coverage, poor access to health care services, lack of education or access to information, poverty-related illness, including undernutrition, and high rates of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, West Nile virus, and Zika virus, as well as other noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, diabetes, and obesity.

As the COVID–19 pandemic has illustrated, diseases do not respect international boundaries, and strong public health effort at and along the United States-Mexico and United States-Canada borders is crucial to not only protect and improve the health of Americans but also to help secure the country against biosecurity and other emerging threats. For 20 years, the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission has served as a crucial binational institution to address these unique and truly cross-border health issues.

The COVID–19 pandemic outbreak has also highlighted the need for continued coordination of resources, effective communication, and information sharing between countries to address emerging public health crises.