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Category: Refugees and Migrants

• Author: The Lancet Infectious Diseases
• Publication Date: 2023

For a host country, managing a large influx of refugees and migrants is a complex task that requires strong political commitment, well-established policies, and structures in place. If giving incoming populations a home, protection, and opportunities for an income is essential, access to healthcare for displaced populations is equally a key human right. The release on Jan 25, 2023, of the WHO Refugee and Migrant Health Toolkit was aimed at helping individual countries to access all available guidelines and tools to develop policies to integrate migrants and refugees in their health system. Such integration is essential for the achievement of the goals of the Global action plan on promoting the health of refugees and migrants, 2019–2023, that mandates provision of healthcare to anyone independently from nationality.

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Category: Refugees and Migrants

• Author: Baltica Cabieses a b h , Benelli Velázquez c h , Alice Blukacz a , Sofia Farante d h , Ietza Bojórquez e h , Edward Mezones-Holguín f g
• Publication Date: December 2024

Gender is a sociocultural construct that assigns forms of behaviour, power, and roles to individuals based on their sexual differentiation. There are multiple gender approaches that help distinguish risks, health conditions and behaviours related to the body, health-disease processes, and differential opportunities to access health care. Based on a scoping review of scientific and grey literature in LAC, we discuss existing understandings of international migrants’ health in LAC with a focus on gender approaches. Our discussion covers the following seven dimensions: gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, mental health, barriers to healthcare services, and emerging patterns of health and healthcare among men and LGBTIQA+. The evidence indicates the urgent need to adopt gender approaches when addressing migrant and refugee health in LAC. Including gender approaches into ongoing strategies for promoting and protecting the health and rights of migrants and refugees is a pending challenge in the region.

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Category: Refugees and Migrants

• Author: Antonio Bernabe‑Ortiz1,2,3 · Rodrigo M. Carrillo‑Larco1,4
• Publication Date: 2022

The political and economic crisis in Venezuela has originated an unprecedented migration. As of November 2020, 1.04 million Venezuelans have moved to Peru. Understanding their health profile is needed to identify their needs, provide care and secure resources without affecting the healthcare of nationals. We quantified the burden of multimorbidity and disability in the Venezuelan population in Peru. We analyzed the 2018 Survey of Venezuelan Population Living in Peru; population-based with random sampling survey in six cities in Peru. Participants were asked about the presence of 12 chronic conditions (self-reported); this information was grouped into 0, 1 and ≥ 2 conditions (i.e., multimorbidity). Disability was also ascertained with a self-reported questionnaire adapted from the short version of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics. Socioeconomic variables were analyzed as potential determinants. Variables were described with frequencies and 95% confidence interval (95% CI), compared with Chi2 test, and association estimates were derived with a Poisson regression reporting prevalence ratio and 95% CI. Results accounted for the complex survey design. The analysis included 7554 migrants, mean age 31.8 (SD: 10.2), 46.6% were women, 31.7% migrated alone and 5.6% had refugee status. The prevalence of multimorbidity was 0.6% (95% CI 0.4–0.9%), and was often present in women (p < 0.001), people ≥ 50 years (p < 0.001) and those without recent job (p < 0.001). The prevalence of disability was 2.0% (95% CI 1.5–2.7%), and was common among people ≥ 50 years (p < 0.001) and those without recent job (p < 0.001). Migration alone and refugee status were not associated with multimorbidity or disability. The self-reported prevalence of multimorbidity and disability in Venezuelan migrants in Peru was low, and were not strongly influenced by migration status. While these results could suggest a healthy migrant effect, the healthcare system should be prepared to deliver acute and preventive care for these migrants, while also securing primary prevention to delay the onset of chronic conditions in this population.

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Category: Refugees and Migrants

• Author: Jorge Acosta-ReyesID1 , Julia´n Alfredo Ferna´ndez-NiñoID1,2*, Maylen Liseth RojasBotero3 , Laura Juliana Bonilla-Tinoco4 , Melissa AguirreID1 , Luis A´ ngel Anillo1 , David Alejandro Rodrı´guez5 , Lida Yoana Cifuentes5 , Iva´n Jime´nez5 , Luisa Fernanda Leo´n5 , Ietza Bojorquez-Chapela6
• Publication Date: March 30, 2023

We carried out a longitudinal cohort study of Venezuelan migrant women, 18 to 45 years, who entered Colombia with an irregular migration status. Study participants were recruited in Cúcuta and its metropolitan area. At baseline, we administered a structured questionnaire including sociodemographic characteristics, migration history, health history, access to health services, sexual and reproductive health, practice of early detection of cervical cancer and breast cancer, food insecurity, and depressive symptoms. The women were again contacted by phone one month later, between March and July 2021, and a second questionnaire was applied. A total of 2,298 women were included in the baseline measurement and 56.4% could be contacted again at the one-month follow-up. At the baseline, 23.0% of the participants reported a self-perceived health problem or condition in the past month and 29.5% in the past 6 months, and 14.5% evaluated their health as fair or poor. A significant increase was found in the percentage of women who reported a self-perceived health problem during the past month (from 23.1% to 31.4%; p<0.01); as well as in the share who reported moderate, severe, or extreme difficulty working or performing daily chores (from 5.5% to 11.0%; p = 0.03) and who rated their health as fair (from 13.0% to 31.2%; p<0.01). Meanwhile, the percentage of women with depressive symptoms decreased from 80.5% to 71.2% (p<0.01).

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