ISTM Health of Migrants and Refugees Committee

Charter

  • The Migrant and Refugee Health Committee is responsible for developing the area of Migrant and Refugee Health as an area of strategic investment for the ISTM
  • The Migrant and Refugee Health Committee is charged with developing and proposing initiatives to increase the membership of Migrant and Refugee Health practitioners within the ISTM
  • The Migrant and Refugee Health Committee is charged with proposing specific programs or initiatives to serve the interest of Migrant and Refugee Health

Members

  • Elizabeth Barnett - USA
  • Ron Behrens - UK - CoChair
  • Francesco Castelli - Italy
  • Martin Cetron - USA
  • Hassan I. Ghaznawi - Saudi Arabia
  • Tony Gherardin - Australia
  • Danielle Grondin - Switzerland
  • Brian Gushulak - Austria - Chair
  • Christophe Hatz - Switzerland
  • Alison Holmes - UK
  • Rogelio Lopez-Velez - Spain
  • Louis C. Loutan - Switzerland
  • Ziad Memish - Saudi Arabia

Committee Activities

The Health of Migrants and Refugees Committee works to better define and understand the travel health influences and implications related to migrants and other mobile populations. Committee activities recognize and reflect the role played by migrants in the area of travel health.

Specifically:

  1. 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);
  2. 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;
  3. Migrants who visit friends and relatives, represent an increasingly important travel medicine risk group;
  4. 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 Committee 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 Committee is involved in two major activities:

  • Development and delivery of a series of reference documents.
  • Increasing the awareness of the importance of migrant-related travel to Visit Friends and 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.

Migration Health Related Links

Migration Health Syllabus
This site is designed and supported by Shoreland, publishers of Travax® EnCompass and Travax®.
Content © ISTM. Send questions or comments about this site to ISTM.
ISTM Home Page