Introduction of Special Issue on Immigrant and Refugee Mental Health and Guest Editors Jacquelyn Flaskerud, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Janna Lesser, PhD, RN

It is my pleasure to introduce the guest editors of this outstanding and timely special issue on immigrant and refugee mental health. The whole world seems to be in turmoil, as millions of people are on the move. Refugees are driven out of the countries of their birth by war and other life-threatening violence, and immigrants are fleeing economic recession and grinding poverty in hope of a better life somewhere else. We have heard the stories of many of these desperate people through print media articles (Bock, 2016; Vick, 2016) and looked with horror at the overflowing ferry boats and squalid refugee camps shown on the nightly television news programs. It has been said that the world is experiencing “the largest flow of displaced people since World War II” (Bock, 2016, p. 18). Governments, humanitarian organizations, and citizens of the countries who take in these millions of displaced people have been overwhelmed. As this issue goes to press, some nations are closing their doors to new immigrants and refugees. Clearly, the world is facing one of the major challenges of the 21st century.

This special issue of the journal focuses on the vast mental health needs of immigrant and refugee peoples. Co-editors are Dr. Jacquelyn Flaskerud and Dr. Janna Lesser, who solicited the manuscripts and devoted many subsequent hours to editorial tasks. Dr. Flaskerud has a long history of contributing to the journal as an author and reviewer, and most notably as the devoted editor of the “Cultural Competence Column” that has appeared in every issue of IMHN for the past 10 years. Dr. Flaskerud's distinguished career includes practice as a staff nurse and clinical specialist in mental health as well as decades of teaching, primarily at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she is Professor Emerita. A consistent thread through four decades of her research and publications is concern for meeting the needs of vulnerable populations (chronically mentally ill, underserved minorities, individuals with HIV/AIDS). She is a prolific writer, contributing to the literature of psychiatric-mental health nursing regularly ever since her first article appeared in 1974. Her compassionate concern for immigrants and refugees was evident long before she volunteered to serve as guest editor for this special issue.

Dr. Janna Lesser joined the editorial board of the journal in 2016, after being invited by Dr. Flaskerud to become the co-editor of the “Cultural Competence Column.” Dr. Lesser is a Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas and the Director of the Center for Community Based Health Promotion with Women and Children. Her educational preparation included postdoctoral study at UCLA with a focus on health risks of vulnerable populations. Dr. Lesser's program of research for the past 20 years has employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches in studying marginalized populations, such as families living in impoverished communities, inner-city dwelling adolescent mothers and fathers, disenfranchised youth (including youth in the juvenile justice system) and individuals and groups living with chronic and severe mental illness.

It is our hope that this special issue heightens psychiatric nurses' awareness of the critical needs of immigrant and refugee peoples and contributes to the development of innovative interventions to meet these needs.