Co-Creating Asset and Place-Based Approaches to Tackling Refugee and Migrant Health Exclusion
Lead Research Organisation:
Anglia Ruskin University
Department Name: Fac of Health, Educ, Med & Social Care
Abstract
Refugees, asylum seekers and migrants (R/AS/Ms) are varyingly yet systematically disadvantaged (EHRC, 2016) throughout their migration and resettlement journeys, as well as (typically) across the post-migration life-course (Allsopp, Sigona and Phillimore, 2014; BMA, 2021; Kemmak, Nargesi and Saniee, 2021). Inequitable access to health-care (physical and mental) and the ability to meaningfully access NHS/integrated care services, whilst fundamental to counteracting health disadvantage, is but one element in relation to improving wellbeing outcomes for these populations.
Poor health experienced by the above groups result from inequitable access to services and opportunities across the social determinants of health (SDOH) including: language barriers, accommodation, employment, education, frequent (often enforced) movement, poverty, and discrimination (Castañeda et al., 2015; Davies, 2006; Marmot et al., 2020). So deep are these exclusions that experience of multiple disadvantage is common, and has been found to persist across the life-course, worsening exponentially for some individuals at particular life-stages, or resulting from possession of 'protected characteristics' (Aldridge et al., 2018; Borhade and Dey, 2018; Dagilyte et al., 2022; The Migration Observatory, 2020)
Against this backdrop, our innovative co-created interdisciplinary research proposal which draws together expertise from a broad range of stakeholders from academia, policy professions, community development, healthcare (front-line practitioners, public health commissioners and Integrated Care Systems [ICS]), statutory and local government sectors, civil society agencies and creatives; has been designed.
The key research aim (framed through understanding the experiences of R/AS/M migrant communities in relation to how diverse SDOHs impact wellbeing, and which by extension is transferable to wider populations) is: to generate an evidence-based conceptual framework for transdisciplinary interventions in health care that allow community assets to be efficiently integrated; in turn supporting cost-efficient, accessible, scalable services, delivered locally and regionally by ICSs and their key partners.
Poor health experienced by the above groups result from inequitable access to services and opportunities across the social determinants of health (SDOH) including: language barriers, accommodation, employment, education, frequent (often enforced) movement, poverty, and discrimination (Castañeda et al., 2015; Davies, 2006; Marmot et al., 2020). So deep are these exclusions that experience of multiple disadvantage is common, and has been found to persist across the life-course, worsening exponentially for some individuals at particular life-stages, or resulting from possession of 'protected characteristics' (Aldridge et al., 2018; Borhade and Dey, 2018; Dagilyte et al., 2022; The Migration Observatory, 2020)
Against this backdrop, our innovative co-created interdisciplinary research proposal which draws together expertise from a broad range of stakeholders from academia, policy professions, community development, healthcare (front-line practitioners, public health commissioners and Integrated Care Systems [ICS]), statutory and local government sectors, civil society agencies and creatives; has been designed.
The key research aim (framed through understanding the experiences of R/AS/M migrant communities in relation to how diverse SDOHs impact wellbeing, and which by extension is transferable to wider populations) is: to generate an evidence-based conceptual framework for transdisciplinary interventions in health care that allow community assets to be efficiently integrated; in turn supporting cost-efficient, accessible, scalable services, delivered locally and regionally by ICSs and their key partners.
