Estimating the global burden of labour exploitation and its impact on health of migrants: Improving health outcomes and health-system responses to lab

Estimating the global burden of labour exploitation and its impact on health of migrants: Improving health outcomes and health-system responses to labour exploitation

The overarching aim of this PhD project is to produce global estimates of the burden of disease due to occupational injuries in migrant populations. It uses a combination of advanced quantitative methods to investigate an understudied social determinant of health in minority populations, coupled with a qualitative component to explore implications of findings. Firstly, it synthesizes the global peer-reviewed literature on the mortality outcomes of migrant workers through a systematic review and meta-analysis using local workers as the reference population, it also proposes a data-driven conceptual framework capturing the intersecting labour- and migration-related determinants of health. Then, it identifies at-risk migrant worker populations through using advanced statistical methods to analyse two quantitative datasets. The first involves a population-based cohort study of linked registers in Denmark using extended Cox modelling to compare the patterns of mortality between migrant workers and local workers and to identify at-risk migrant groups by country of origin and economic sector or occupation. The second involves a secondary dataset analysis of a cross-sectional study in California, USA using the three-step latent class analysis (LCA) approach to investigate the relationship between precarious employment and migrant status on work injury and to identify at-risk sub-populations. Next, it uses advanced modelling methods from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) approach to estimate the global burden of disease attributable to migrants' increased risk of occupational injury. Finally, the last qualitative component comprises policy interviews with experts to explore the challenges, needs, and uses of global burden of disease estimates on the working conditions and employment terms of migrant populations. Findings from this project could contribute towards guiding policies and interventions at global and national levels to improve the working conditions and health outcomes of migrant worker populations, advancing Sustainable Development Goals 8 (decent work) and 3 (good health).