Research highlights urgent need to tackle health challenges for migrants in Europe

The Lancet Regional Health – Europe has launched, on May 28, a new series of seven papers presented alongside the World Health Organization European Assembly.

One of the papers is led by the University of Bergen. In the paper titled, “Capacity building in migration and health in higher education: lessons from five European countries” Esperanza Diaz and colleagues from other four European countries, illustrate good examples in higher education, identify gaps in the further advancement of capacity building and summarize key recommendations for the advancement of capacity building in migration and health.

According to the authors, to be able to deliver equitable care, European health services need to build capacity at high education level to be able to improve the care for migrants. Here are their recommendations that should be also implemented in Norway:

1. Create spaces to share concrete teaching experiences that can be adapted and replicated
2. Promote diversity-sensitive communication skills programs for trainers and teachers
3. Integrate training on migration and health within the broader framework of social determinants of health
4. Develop participatory and intersectional approaches that focus on improving attitudes and skills
5. Capacity building should be both top-down (leadership) as well as bottom-up (involving teachers and students).
6. Advocate for curricula development to reflect and include diversity-sensitive approaches in content and implementation
7. Medical and continuous education accreditations should include new standards for diversity-sensitive health care
8. Prioritize student assessments and course evaluations instead of seeing them as optional
9. Promote mandatory diversity-related competences in both undergraduate and specialized training
10. Co-create and maintain dialogue with key stakeholders, different members of the health care team and migrants