Search Results (1,487)

(1) Background: Colombia hosts one of the world’s largest mixed-displacement crises, combining longstanding internal displacement with the influx of Venezuelan migrants. This case study examines how the Emergency Medical Team (EMT) Hospital Barco San Raffaele (HBSR) adapted its service-delivery model to respond simultaneously to internal displacement in the Colombian Pacific region and the Venezuelan refugee influx. Using the WHO EMT Surge Capacity Framework, the study analyses how health services were adapted across two concurrent displacement contexts. (2) Methods: A mixed-methods comparative case study was conducted using mission reports, epidemiological surveillance data, policy reports and institutional documents collected between November 2020 and May 2021. Data were analyzed through a thematic analysis structured around the four domains of the WHO EMT Surge Capacity Framework (Staff, Structure, Supplies and Systems), to examine how service adaptation was operationalized across different geographic, sociocultural and legal environments; (3) Results: EMT HBSR adapted staffing composition, supply chains, infrastructure, and operational systems across both settings. Its hybrid model, combining a hospital boat platform with mobile outreach teams, enabled continuity of primary care, mental, maternal and child health, and community-based services in geographically isolated and culturally diverse communities; (4) Conclusions: The findings illustrate how flexible EMT operational models can support the adaptation of health services, and reduce health access inequalities in displacement contexts characterized by high mobility, confinement and limited health system capacity. Mobile platforms, such as hospital boats, appear to be a viable strategy for ensuring continuity of care along migratory routes and in geographically isolated areas affected by protracted instability. Full article

The 1923 Greek–Turkish Population Exchange (Mubadele in Turkish), formalized through the Lausanne Convention, remains one of the most consequential cases of compulsory migration in modern history. This systematic review synthesizes a century of scholarship across political, legal, social, cultural, and historiographical dimensions. Findings indicate that the exchange not only legitimized forced displacement under international law but also reinforced authoritarian state-building in Turkey and exacerbated political instability in Greece. The social consequences included trauma, marginalization, and the emergence of heterogeneous refugee identities, while cultural memory oscillated between nationalist silencing and transnational remembrance. Urban landscapes and demographic structures were profoundly reshaped, producing visible legacies in contemporary cities. Furthermore, assimilation policies formalized the integration of populations, influencing the development of national identities in both Turkey and Greece. Historiographical trajectories diverged, with Greek scholarship emphasizing refugee struggles and Turkish scholarship foregrounding nation-building. Recent studies highlight hybrid identities and transgenerational redefinitions of belonging. This review underscores the necessity of integrating political, social, and memory studies to capture the multi-layered impacts of the exchange, offering a comprehensive account of its enduring relevance for migration, nationalism, and memory studies in Southeast Europe. Full article

Social media is an integral part of everyday life for women from migrant and refugee backgrounds and is sometimes recognised as a ‘critical lifeline’ enabling access to essential support during settlement. Despite this, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) women in Australia often have limited and uneven access to critical social media literacy education opportunities, and there remains a lack of in-depth research exploring what CALD women want to learn and how they wish to participate in such educational interventions. Adopting an education justice approach, this article advances a framework for social media literacy education developed with women from refugee backgrounds. The study employed semi-structured interviews and co-design workshops with women from refugee backgrounds, alongside staff from local public libraries and refugee support organisations. The study demonstrates that women from refugee backgrounds primarily use social media for communication and connection, but are also interested in learning how to use these platforms to navigate sexism, racism, and other systemic barriers to settlement. The proposed framework—which can be adopted by public libraries and other grassroots organisations—responds directly to women’s calls for peer-led, value-driven, context-specific, and culturally responsive social media literacy interventions. Full article

Background: Refugees arriving from conflict zones often continue to experience trauma and are at increased risk of anxiety and depression. Those seeking asylum form a group at higher risk of suffering adverse mental health outcomes, with higher needs for psychosocial and therapeutic care. This study aimed to determine metabolic changes potentially associated with psychological distress in refugees from Syria, using a saliva-based metabolomics approach via proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy. Methods: Participants were recruited from Lethbridge Family Services and categorized into high and low stress burden groups using questionnaires assessing depression (PHQ-9) and generalized anxiety (GAD-7). Salivary metabolomic profiles from 26 female and 32 male participants were analyzed using supervised and unsupervised multivariate statistical methods to identify metabolic differences linked to composite stress, depression, and anxiety. Results: Salivary metabolic profiles showed the most prominent differences associated with anxiety in female participants and depression in male participants. Multivariate statistical analyses identified 31 metabolites and 13 biological pathways that were significantly altered according to mental health status, with the greatest changes observed in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, sphingolipid metabolism, and taurine/hypotaurine metabolism. Conclusions: These findings indicate that salivary 1H NMR metabolomic profiling can identify a quantifiable “metabolic fingerprint” related to impaired mental health and psychological distress in a cost-effective, objective, and non-invasive way. This analytical strategy shows potential as a screening tool to support effective decision-making, enabling early identification of individuals at highest risk who require timely emotional and medical support. Full article

Armed conflicts are at the epicentre of an information war, amplified by false claims about the motivations of the conflicts and refugees. The spread of narratives, especially in digital media, challenges the European Union to implement effective strategies to combat misinformation and to adopt measures to scrutinise and hold the main communication channels accountable, in order to prevent hostile narratives from influencing public opinion and political decision-makers. In this context, this article seeks to analyse the implications of media discourses and misinformation in the development of social representations about the Russian–Ukrainian war and refugees, as well as the use of social networks by individuals to share this type of content. The research is based on an exploratory study as part of the R&D Project MeInWar—Study on the media and social representations of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, funded by Europeia University. The study employed a survey method and an online questionnaire applied to a non-probabilistic convenience sample of 222 individuals aged between 18 and 38. The results revealed that media narratives influence attitudes towards refugees and migration policies, and it is clear that factors such as age and gender have an impact on content-sharing practices and the motivations behind them. Full article

Background/Objectives: In recent years, the migrant population has been increasing. Migrants are at risk for malnutrition, mental disorders and related health problems. In this study, we aimed to examine the relationships among diet quality, eating behavior, posttraumatic stress disorders and sleep quality in Syrian migrants. Methods: This study included 78 female and 72 male Syrian adult migrants. The participants completed a questionnaire including demographic information, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Short Scale, and a three-factor eating questionnaire. For the diet quality calculation, a 24 h retrospective food consumption record was taken. Results: A total of 94.0% of the participants had mild to moderate risk of posttraumatic stress disorder. It was determined that 90.7% of Syrian migrants had low or moderate diet quality. There was a positive correlation between the PTSD score and age (r = 0.244) and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index score (r = 0.244) and between the Pittsburgh sleep quality index score and uncontrolled eating (r = 0.171) (p < 0.05). The probability of impaired sleep quality increased in individuals with PTSD scores in the T2 (11–19 points) (OR: 1.342; 95% CI: 1.073–1.678) and T3 (20–31 points) (OR: 1.485; 95% CI:1.157–1.905) groups, whereas the probability of improved diet quality increased in individuals in the T2 (11–19 points) (OR: 1.042; 95% CI: 1.000–1.086) group. Conclusions: Poor diet quality, risk of posttraumatic stress disorder and poor sleep quality are very common among Syrian migrants. In this respect, evaluating Syrian migrants and taking necessary precautions may help reduce the risk of chronic diseases related to nutrient deficiencies and mental problems. There is a need for policies and programs to manage PTSD among Syrian refugees. Full article

Early childhood intervention and education play a central role in promoting equity, developmental outcomes, and long-term well-being for all children, particularly those experiencing those with disabilities or refugee status. In Türkiye, children at this intersection face compounded barriers to inclusive early childhood education (ECE). This paper examines how disability, and forced migration intersect to shape access to early childhood services in Türkiye, analyzing legal frameworks, programs, implementation gaps, and contextual factors. A review of policy documents, research, and program evaluations, reveals that while Türkiye has established foundational policies and achieved progress, structural barriers and governance fragmentation limit equitable service provision. The study adopts an intersectional framework and Guralnick’s Developmental Systems Model to identify leverage points for reform. The findings underscore the critical need for integrated service systems, strengthened cross-sectoral coordination, and targeted support mechanisms for families experiencing intersecting vulnerabilities in Türkiye, a country that ranks among the top five hosts of the world’s largest refugee populations. Full article

Newcomers to the United States face numerous obstacles. This article examines the perceptions and practices of school personnel in one Texas K–12 school district concerning culturally responsive leadership (CRL) and school practices for emergent bilingual (EB) newcomer students with refugee backgrounds. The two research questions guiding this paper include (1) What are the perceptions of K–12 school personnel about the policies, programs, and practices that shape the experiences of EB newcomer students with refugee backgrounds? and (2) How do K–12 school personnel perceive and practice culturally responsive leadership to create inclusive schools for EB newcomers? Despite robust scholarship on refugee education and culturally responsive leadership (CRL), less is known about how school personnel interpret policy and organizational constraints and subsequently translate those interpretations into everyday leadership and pedagogical practices. Following a qualitative case study research design, this study used interviews, focus groups, and vignette discussion prompts with teachers, administrators, and district representatives to show how personnel interpreted policy, categorization, and accountability pressures and how they reported responding through welcoming, relational, and culturally responsive practices. Findings are reported at the level of personnel perceptions and reported practices rather than student outcomes. The study offers practical implications for schools and districts seeking to better support the integration of EB newcomer students with refugee backgrounds into schools and communities. Full article

Global forced displacement has reached unprecedented levels, with more than 123 million people uprooted by the end of 2024. Although older adults represent a growing proportion of refugee populations, their mental health needs remain overlooked. This scoping review synthesized current evidence on depression among older adult refugees aged 50 years and older. Guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and reported using PRISMA-ScR standards, searches were conducted in CINAHL, PsycINFO, AgeLine, and Medline for English-language publications from 2015 to 2025. A total of 1971 records were identified, with nine studies (N = 1370 participants) meeting eligibility criteria. Most studies employed cross-sectional designs and were conducted in high-income countries. Depression prevalence was consistently elevated, with rates ranging from 22% to over 70%, depending on population and measurement tools. Risk factors included female sex, widowhood, low socioeconomic status, chronic illness, functional impairment, trauma exposure, language barriers, social isolation, and limited access to care. Protective influences such as family support, higher socioeconomic status, and improved living conditions were identified but inconsistently reported. Findings indicate that older refugees are at high risk of depression, often shaped by intersecting aging- and displacement-related vulnerabilities. Findings highlight the need for culturally specific tools and longitudinal research to inform culturally safe care for older refugees. Full article

The political transition in Syria following the fall of the Al-Assad regime in December 2024 has renewed debates about refugee return. This study examines Syrian refugees’ intentions to return from Jordan and the factors shaping these decisions using a mixed-method design. A stratified random sample of 1070 refugees residing in host areas and camps was surveyed through telephone interviews, complemented by four focus group discussions and two key informant interviews with experts. Although 61% of respondents expressed an intention to return, only 20% indicated concrete or immediate plans, suggesting that return remains largely aspirational rather than imminent. Access to housing and property (55%), economic condition (46%), and safety and security (40%) emerged as central determinants, indicating that structural barriers, rather than regime change alone, shape decision-making. Qualitative findings further reveal that emotional attachment to Syria sustains return aspirations, yet financial hardship, debt in Jordan, and housing destruction in Syria constrain refugees’ capabilities to act. These findings underscore that voluntary, safe, and dignified repatriation depends not only on addressing structural barriers in Syria, but also on maintaining essential protection and support for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Full article

Background and aim: Hemoglobinopathies have become an important public health problem due to global migration. The aim of this project was to address the problem of hemoglobinopathy among immigrants living in Türkiye, Spain, and Italy, in addition to training health managers and Syrian family physicians at immigrant health centers in the southeastern provinces of Türkiye. Material and methods: A three-year international project, named EQUALITY PLUS, was supported by the European Union Erasmus Project. We planned transnational meetings (TPM), vocational education meetings (VET), and Practical Implementation Meetings (PIEM) for the education program. Results: Four TPMs were held in Türkiye, Spain, and Italy, involving a total of 49 professionals. Two VETs were held in Spain and Italy. A total of 23 professionals attended both VETs. Six PIEMs were held in the southern and southeastern Turkish provinces, such as Adana Mersin, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kilis, and Sanliurfa. A total of 442 people, including 373 Syrian family physicians and 69 provincial health managers, were educated in six provinces in Türkiye. Discussion: While the immigrants to Italy and Spain come mainly from Central and North West African maritime routes, immigrants to Türkiye predominantly come from Syria. Among a total of 4 million Syrian immigrants to Türkiye, 200.000 were found to be carriers of thalassemia. In the refugee camps where Syrian immigrants live, the fertility rate is high and the number of sick newborns is increasing, and birth control, genetic counseling, and prenatal diagnosis methods are not sufficient. This project was intended to serve as a guide to prevent hemoglobinopathy in Syrian immigrants. Further projects are needed to address the fertility rate and increased number of sick newborns in these refugee camps. Family physicians at migrant health centers received training on the prevention of hemoglobinopathies. This training included providing detailed genetic counseling to families and providing prenatal diagnosis and preimplantation genetic diagnosis opportunities. Because of the major earthquake that occurred in this region after the project, the work could not continue and preliminary data could not be obtained. Public health services will follow the results of project and the registered number of sick newborns with hemoglobinopathies. Full article

Background: Breast cancer outcomes are influenced by tumor biology, stage at diagnosis, and access to timely care. Refugee populations may experience disparities in cancer outcomes despite formal access to healthcare services. Türkiye hosts the largest population of Syrian refugees globally and provides universal access to oncology care, offering a unique context to examine equity in breast cancer outcomes. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of female patients diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 2013 and 2022 at two tertiary oncology centers in Gaziantep, Türkiye. Patients were grouped as Syrian refugees or Turkish citizens based on recorded nationality. Baseline clinicopathologic features and stage at diagnosis were compared between groups. Overall survival (OS) was estimated by the Kaplan–Meier method and compared using log-rank tests. Survival analyses were performed overall and stratified by stage category (I–III vs. IV). Cox proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the association between ethnicity and OS with adjustment for stage and molecular subtype (and other prespecified covariates as appropriate). Treatment delivery patterns (systemic therapy and radiotherapy) were descriptively compared to evaluate access after entry into care. Results: Among 499 patients (150 Syrian refugees; 349 Turkish citizens), Syrian patients were younger at diagnosis and more frequently presented with de novo metastatic disease. In the overall cohort with survival data (n = 430), unadjusted OS differed by ethnicity; however, survival differences were attenuated after stratification by stage. In stage I–III disease, OS did not significantly differ between groups, and in stage IV disease, median OS was comparable between ethnicities. In multivariable analysis adjusting for stage and molecular subtype, ethnicity was not independently associated with OS, whereas stage and molecular subtype remained prognostic. Treatment delivery patterns in both the non-metastatic and metastatic settings were broadly similar between groups. Conclusions: Within a universal healthcare system, the dominant disparity between Syrian refugees and Turkish citizens was more advanced stage at presentation. After accounting for stage and tumor biology, ethnicity itself was not independently associated with overall survival, suggesting that efforts to reduce outcome gaps should prioritize earlier diagnosis and linkage to care. Full article

Entrepreneurship is widely promoted as a pathway to refugee self-reliance, yet the conditions under which entrepreneurial livelihoods unfold, and the forms of labor they generate, remain underexamined. This study investigates how displacement and patriarchal household relations shape refugee women’s entrepreneurship, asking when survival-oriented enterprise produces labor vulnerability rather than alleviating it. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research with Syrian refugee women entrepreneurs in Lebanon, the study reveals that entrepreneurship emerges primarily as a survival response to exclusion and precarity rather than an opportunity-driven choice. As a result, entrepreneurial activity becomes embedded within informal, relationally governed arrangements that intensify dependency and constrain exit, while women’s labor is regulated through overlapping household expectations, kinship obligations, and gendered moral economies that reproduce unprotected, difficult-to-exit work. The study shows that entrepreneurship and labor vulnerability may be co-constituted, repositions households as institutions of labor governance, and bridges entrepreneurship and forced labor scholarship by demonstrating how constrained labor emerges within self-employment through relational governance and survival imperatives. These findings challenge policy approaches that treat entrepreneurship as a stand-alone solution to refugee labor exclusion, revealing how market-based inclusion may normalize precarity instead. Full article

Norwegian early childhood education and care (ECEC) is increasingly shaped by cultural diversity, raising questions of justice regarding how children and parents, particularly those from refugee and other minority backgrounds, are recognised as equal participants in the institutional community. This article develops a conceptual framework of just recognition as professional practice through a meta-ethnographic synthesis of three qualitative studies conducted in Norwegian ECEC. The studies examine ECEC professionals’ constructions of diversity, refugee parents’ experiences, and negotiations within home–ECEC partnerships. Drawing on theories of recognition, participatory parity, and democratic equality, this article conceptualises diversity as recognition-in-relation and analyses how justice is enacted in everyday pedagogical and relational practices. The synthesis identifies three interlinked mechanisms, equality, adaptation, and reflexivity, through which recognition and misrecognition are produced across relational levels. While equality is often enacted as sameness, adaptation may be asymmetrically distributed, and reflexivity emerges as a crucial professional practice for rendering institutional norms visible and open to negotiation. This article argues that everyday pedagogical work and home–ECEC partnerships constitute key sites where the conditions for equal standing and participatory parity are either enabled or constrained. By shifting attention from inclusion as access to justice as enacted practice, the study contributes a relational and institutional framework for analysing cultural diversity in ECEC. Full article

The article is based on On the Move a holistic, playful movement intervention with children in Red Cross asylum centers in Denmark. Children in asylum centers in Denmark have diverse backgrounds, challenges, and resources. Common challenges due to their life situations can include potential trauma stemming from flight, migration, and/or war experienced by the children and their parents. Furthermore, they live with uncertainty regarding future relocation. These conditions may induce a state of alert, as the children’s foundations feel insecure. These circumstances can also affect the children’s emotional, cognitive, motor, and relational developmental processes. On the Move is a practice-based research project focused on examining how participation in a long-term holistic, playful movement intervention can support children in asylum centers regarding connectedness. The research project is inspired by a phenomenological understanding of body and movement, hermeneutic–phenomenological research, practitioner research, and Arts-Based Research. The data presented here is derived from scenic descriptions and interviews collected during the research project. The theoretical framework is based on the concepts of ontological security, movement philosophy and movement psychology. The article illuminates one of the main practice-based thematic findings from the research project: “Children sway—movement processes”. The article highlights challenges faced by the children due to their life situations and shows how teachers can support the children’s participation in the intervention. The article focuses both on the children’s life situations viewed by professionals and on the children’s movement processes during the intervention. In the movement processes, the children can enter a state in which they are described as being in harmony with the movements, with themselves, and with others. In this way, participating in a holistic, playful movement intervention can support the connectedness of children in asylum centers. Full article