Improving the health of migrants

Abstract

Toxic narratives complicate rational debates and hinder workable solutions Anti-immigrant rhetoric permeates today’s political discourse and soaks through much of society. In this highly politicised context, dominated by debates on immigration and border control, understanding and tackling what affects the health of migrants, their families, and communities is often overlooked and underserved. These gaps in understanding the relation between migration and health remain a challenge that policy makers, practitioners, civil society, and researchers must collectively embrace.12 International attention focused through the prism of media and politicians is on migrants moving through “irregular” means—outside the laws and regulations that govern migration—and those who overstay their visas. However, the largest annual migrant flows globally are people moving within state boundaries for employment, to study, or because they are forcibly displaced. The health of internal migrants is often ignored in global debates and shielded by state sovereignty. The United Nations estimates there were 258 million international migrants (people living outside their country of birth) in 2018, including 3.5 million asylum seekers and 20.4 million refugees.3 Nearly 60% are migrant workers, who mainly move along documented or legal pathways, meeting labour shortages …