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International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks

The large-scale international migration in the 21st century has emerged as a major threat to the global health equity movement. Not only has the volume of migration substantially increased but also the patterns of migration have become more complex. This paper began by focusing on the drivers of int...

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Autor principal: Hossin, Muhammad Zakir
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7053782/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32180999
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001938
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author Hossin, Muhammad Zakir
author_facet Hossin, Muhammad Zakir
author_sort Hossin, Muhammad Zakir
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description The large-scale international migration in the 21st century has emerged as a major threat to the global health equity movement. Not only has the volume of migration substantially increased but also the patterns of migration have become more complex. This paper began by focusing on the drivers of international migration and how health inequalities are linked to migration. Situating migration within the broader structural contexts, the paper calls for using the unharnessed potential of the intersectionality framework to advance immigrant health research. Despite coming from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds and facing disparities in the host society, the immigrants are often paradoxically shown to be healthier than the native population, although this health advantage diminishes over time. Studies on immigrant health, however, are traditionally informed by the acculturation framework which holds the assimilation of unhealthy lifestyles primarily responsible for immigrant health deterioration, diverting the attention away from the structural factors. Although the alternative structural framework came up with the promise to explore the structural factors, it is criticised for an overwhelming focus on access to healthcare and inadequate attention to institutional and societal contexts. However, the heterogeneity of the immigrant population across multiple dimensions of vulnerability demands a novel approach that can bring to the fore both premigratory and postmigratory contextual factors and adequately capture the picture of immigrant health. The paper concludes by questioning the acculturation perspective and pushing the structural paradigm to embrace the intersectionality framework which has the potential to address a wide range of vulnerabilities that intersect to produce health inequalities among the immigrants.
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spelling pubmed-70537822020-03-16 International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks Hossin, Muhammad Zakir BMJ Glob Health Analysis The large-scale international migration in the 21st century has emerged as a major threat to the global health equity movement. Not only has the volume of migration substantially increased but also the patterns of migration have become more complex. This paper began by focusing on the drivers of international migration and how health inequalities are linked to migration. Situating migration within the broader structural contexts, the paper calls for using the unharnessed potential of the intersectionality framework to advance immigrant health research. Despite coming from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds and facing disparities in the host society, the immigrants are often paradoxically shown to be healthier than the native population, although this health advantage diminishes over time. Studies on immigrant health, however, are traditionally informed by the acculturation framework which holds the assimilation of unhealthy lifestyles primarily responsible for immigrant health deterioration, diverting the attention away from the structural factors. Although the alternative structural framework came up with the promise to explore the structural factors, it is criticised for an overwhelming focus on access to healthcare and inadequate attention to institutional and societal contexts. However, the heterogeneity of the immigrant population across multiple dimensions of vulnerability demands a novel approach that can bring to the fore both premigratory and postmigratory contextual factors and adequately capture the picture of immigrant health. The paper concludes by questioning the acculturation perspective and pushing the structural paradigm to embrace the intersectionality framework which has the potential to address a wide range of vulnerabilities that intersect to produce health inequalities among the immigrants. BMJ Publishing Group 2020-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7053782/ /pubmed/32180999 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001938 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Analysis
Hossin, Muhammad Zakir
International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks
title International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks
title_full International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks
title_fullStr International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks
title_full_unstemmed International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks
title_short International migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks
title_sort international migration and health: it is time to go beyond conventional theoretical frameworks
topic Analysis
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7053782/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32180999
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001938
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