Research on Migration and Migrant Health

Research on Migration and Migrant Health
The number of research centers around the world
addressing migration related issues has increased in
the past few years. This is particularly evident in
developed countries, where governments are channeling
more resources to migration research. Still, universities
and private research bodies conduct much of the
work. Countries such as Canada and Australia, which
have ‘in-house’ research programmes linked to their migration departments, are an exception. In developing countries, resources are rarely devoted to setting up
migrant research programmes. This regional imbalance
is accompanied by a difference in research priorities.
For developed countries, topics such as asylum, irregular
migration and migrant trafficking have priority.
Developing countries, on the other hand, are interested
in the whereabouts of their citizens and in strengthening
collaboration between origin and destination countries.
Research on migrant health takes two broad directions, one dealing with questions of equity in health
and health care provision, the other investigating the
role of nature vs. nurture in disease causation. Both
encounter similar problems as those faced when collecting
health information on migrants, such as finding an appropriate and operationalizable way of defining the
group under study. Few countries such as Switzerland have conducted large-scale surveys on migrant health
( migrant health surveys). Epidemiological studies on disease causation compare the risks of populations of similar ethnic origin in different environments, i. e., in the country of origin and the host country. By analyzing variations e. g. in risk of coronary heart disease, the respective contributions of genetic traits and environment can be investigated.