Ventanillas de Salud: an innovative binational model of access and prevention for the Mexican migrant population in the United States
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The Mexican-origin population constitutes the largest immigrant group in the United States. It faces persistent inequities in access to health care due to economic, linguistic, structural, and immigration-related barriers. In response to these coverage deserts, the Government of Mexico developed the Ventanillas de Salud (VDS, Health Windows) strategy. This public health model leverages the infrastructure of the Mexican consular network to deliver health promotion, timely detection, vaccination, and referral to specialized health facilities for millions of people who would otherwise lack access. This policy and practice review offers a conceptual and operational account of VDS —what it is, how it operates, and what distinguishes it— and, as a novel contribution, links it to the priorities of the 2025–2030 National Development Plan and to the sectoral health and foreign affairs programs of the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, as well as to the framework of health diplomacy. It draws on the peer-reviewed literature, institutional reports and evaluations, aggregate administrative data from the SICRESAL-MX information system for 2019–2025, and the author’s experience working on the strategy’s health component. VDS brings together the Secretariat of Health and the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, through the Institute for Mexicans Abroad (Instituto de Mexicanas y Mexicanos en el Exterior, IMME) and with the technical support of the Mexican Section of the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission, together with local lead agencies and a network of more than six hundred partners. It operates through a care model delivered by community health promoters and is sustained by a mixed financing scheme in which government seed funding catalyzes in-kind contributions. More than an isolated strategy, VDS is the operational expression in which Mexican Humanism, the “República Sana” (Healthy Republic) initiative, and the “defense of migrants through the consulates” converge, structuring current national planning. Its distinguishing feature—expanding the consular role toward health promotion in binational collaboration—makes it a distinctive case of health diplomacy in service of the right to health for a vulnerable population. The available evidence documents the strategy’s reach, the profile of its users and their satisfaction; its effects on health outcomes and costs, and its replicability, have not yet been measured.
Source: Frontiers in Public Health
Author: Gabriel Jorge Terrés Cruz
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W7225758582