Ensuring health equity of marginalized populations: experiences from mainstreaming the health of migrants

Abstract

Migrants around the world significantly contribute to the economies of countries of origin and destination alike. Despite the growing number of migrants in today's globalized world, the conditions in which migrants travel, live and work can carry exceptional risks to their physical and mental well-being. These risks are often linked to restrictive immigration and employment policies, economic and social factors and dominant anti-migrant sentiments in societies, and are often referred to as the social determinants of migrants' health. These social determinants need to be addressed in order for migrants to attain their development potential and to concurrently contribute to sustainable development, while reducing the health costs of migration for both migrants and societies of origin and destination. A multi-sectoral approach is required to effectively address the social determinants of migrants' health, as many of the solutions to improving migrants' health lie not only in the health sector but in other sectors, such as labour and immigration. This requires collaboration across the different sectors and integrating migrants' health issues in different sectoral policies to avoid marginalization and exclusion of migrants and ensure positive health outcomes for migrants and their families. The paper will discuss a 'Health in All Policies' (HiAP) approach to migrants' health as, to date, there has not been much discussion on framing migrants' health within an HiAP approach. The paper will also present some examples from countries who have addressed different aspects of migrants' health in line with the recommendations of the 61st World Health Assembly (WHA) Resolution 61.17 on the Health of Migrants (2008).

Keywords: inequalities in health; migrant health; multisectoral policy response; social exclusion.