South Sudan refugees in Ethiopia (2017) UE, Lars Oberhaus
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is a global migration hotspot. However, migrants often live in precarious conditions with limited access to health care and higher mortality rates. Yet, there is a lack of epidemiological data on the major health problems affecting these populations, making it difficult to promote health policies. There is an urgent need to strengthen routine data collection around migrant health and to define key indicators to facilitate migrant health monitoring.
To address this problem, we are developing the Migrant Health Country Profile tool (MHCP-t), an innovative digital platform that will facilitate data collection in three key domains: health care, health data and health care policies for migrant populations in the region. The purpose of this first-of-its-kind tool is to monitor vaccination and key diseases, and identify hotspots and gaps in prevention and care efforts.
Ultimately, MHCP-t will enable countries to strengthen data collection, facilitate cross-country comparisons, and transform service delivery and policy making around migration and health.
Both the MHCP-t tool and the MENA Migrant Health network are set to evolve alongside with the future needs of migrant health in the region and will eventually be rolled out in other regions around the world. The long-term transformative changes are:
The transformation of migrant health data collection to strengthen cross-country and regional health monitoring and to drive policy changes to improve health outcomes.
The development of a flagship International PhD programme as the foundation for the creation and future expansion of an early and mid-career researcher network that will remain active beyond the duration of this grant.
The careful embedment of MHCP-t into routine health systems to ensure country ownership and facilitate cross-country and regional dialogue on migrant health surveillance.
Our consortium consists of leading international experts in different fields of public health ranging from migrant health and health system strengthening, to digital innovation and global inmunisation. To ensure the transformative implementation of this tool – designed to enable research-based decisions at the clinical and epidemiological level – the team will grow to include experts from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), as well as from Ministries of Health in each country, and will work closely with local health practitioners and policy-makers, migrant communities and related advocacy and civil society organisations.
The MENA Migrant Health project is funded by ”la Caixa” Foundation (Spain) in the framework of the Mobility – Global Medicine and Health Research programme, a joint initiative with three other European Foundations: Nordisk Foundation (Denmark), the Wellcome Trust (United Kingdom) and the Volkswagen Foundation (Germany) (LCF/PR/SP21/52930003).
The project will run from 2022 to 2025 under the coordination of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).