Who We Are

The Leah Zallman Center for Immigrant Health Research partners with immigrant communities, advocates, policymakers, and social and health systems on actionable research to improve immigrant health and well-being.

Led by Dr. Jessica Santos, we are a group of social scientists and public health researchers who conduct rigorous mixed methods research to answer relevant questions about the health of immigrants and communities. We work in partnership with funders, advocates, health systems, and immigrant communities to develop and conduct actionable, high-impact research to advance policy that supports immigrant health and health equity.

The Leah Zallman Center is a research center at the Institute for Community Health (ICH). The Center is proud to build on ICH’s long history of using participatory methods to ensure that community voices in research are amplified to the state and national level as part of evidence-based policymaking.

Register now for the next LZC Coffee Chat on October 16, 2025!

This Coffee Chat is geared toward healthcare professionals; panelists will share legal updates for immigrant health and healthcare.

Impact Report 2022-2024

The Leah Zallman Center for Immigrant Health Research (LZC) is proud to share our first cumulative impact report that shows how we have grown and evolved since we launched in 2022.

Fresh Off The Press!

Summer 2025 Newsletter

Healthy and Equitable Futures Initiative: Greater Rochester Health Foundation

The Greater Rochester Health Foundation’s Healthy and Equitable Futures Initiative (HEF) hired ICH/LZC to work collaboratively with Parent Leader Facilitators (PLFs) and the HEF team on a participatory action research project to identify impactful systems-change work to advance health and racial equity in education and child outcomes. The evaluation team will provide technical assistance for the evaluation of train-the-trainer programming and will guide the development of a project evaluation plan to measure parent liberation, collective action, and systems change to advance equity in educational and other connected systems in Rochester.

Preparing Clinicians to Conduct Forensic Medical and Mental Health Evaluations for People Seeking Asylum

Emery E, Snyder SA, Wen JX, Basu G, Santos J, McCormick D, Kallivayalil D. Preparing Clinicians to Conduct Forensic Medical and Mental Health Evaluations for People Seeking Asylum.…