ISTM Migrant and Refugee Health Interest Group
- Chairs: Elizabeth Barnett, United States of America,
Brian Gushulak, Austria
- Co-Chair: Rogelio Lopez-Velez, Spain
Welcome to the Migrants and Refugees Health Interest Group page on the ISTM website. We will be updating this page regularly and hope you will visit often. The Interest Group invites all ISTM members who are interested in the travel health of migrant and other mobile populations to join our group. There is no cost to join, and it's easy. Click here to join or for more information.
The focus of the Support Group is to address issues pertaining to travel health influences and implications related to migrants and other mobile populations.
The Migrants and Refugees Health Interest Group Charter is to:
- Develop the area of Migrant and Refugee Health as an area of strategic investment for the ISTM;
- Develop and propose initiatives to increase the membership of Migrant and Refugee Health practitioners within the ISTM; and,
- Propose specific programs or initiatives to serve the interest of Migrant and Refugee Health.
If you have suggestions regarding the activities listed below or new ideas for the Interest Group to consider, please direct your comments to Elizabeth Barnett. We look forward to hearing from you!
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Migrants and Refugees Health Interest Group Activities
The Interest Group works to define and understand the travel health influences and implications related to migrants and other mobile populations. Activities recognize and reflect the role played by migrants in the area of travel health.
Specifically:
- In many locations migrants represent the cohort of international travelers with the greatest incidence and prevalence of, travel related disease. (malaria, parasitic disease, tropical infectious diseases);
- In several locations migrants represent the major or significant case loads of practitioners who deal with tropical medicine or imported infections in the developed world;
- Migrants who visit friends and relatives represent an increasingly important travel medicine risk group; and,
- Increasing migration is expanding the number of physicians and health care providers involved with the care of these populations.
Through improved research and understanding of these relationships the Interest Group strives to increase the awareness and provision of relevant information to those practitioners involved with managing health issues in migrant travelers.
At the present time the Interest Group is involved in two major activities:
- The development and delivery of a series of reference documents and updating these as needed.
- Increasing the awareness of the importance of migrant-related travel to Visit Friends or Relatives (VFR Travel) and developing strategies to ensure that VFR travelers both seek and are provided with relevant travel health information and risk reducing interventions.
ISTM Members: Click here to go to manage my membership and join this group.