written by István Szilárd
The Migrant Health Section of EUPHA has a more than twenty years long history and gradually has extended its scope for the public health problem of all of the most vulnerable groups of peoples. That is why during its 2010 conference in Pécs its name was changed for Migrant and Ethnic Minority Health Section. It has more than 1800 active members. https://eupha.org/migrant-and-ethnic-minority-health.
Dr. Bernadette Kumar from the Unit for Migration Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, is the president of the Section.
This section’s priorities are to:
- Build a network of health professionals on migration and health from a public health perspective.
- Increase the knowledge on differences in health problems, use and quality of health care services and on interventions to tackle these differences.
- Discuss conceptual and methodological issues regarding ethnic differences in health and health care
- Develop strategies to influence national and European policy makers and politicians to increase attention for ethnic health and health care differences.
- Initiate and further use of standard identification methods and data collection procedures.
In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic the Section was among the initiators of the call:
Leaving no one behind in the Covid-19 Pandemic: an urgent global call to action for inclusion of migrants & refugees in the Covid-19 response.
The team of the WHO Collaborating Centre (WCC) for migrant health training and research at University of Pécs Medical School is participating actively in the work of the Section, its co-head, professor Dr Istvan Szilard is member of its Board. On the website of the WCC the call for ‘Leaving no one behind in the Covid-19 Pandemic’ call for action is available among others the pandemic related scientific publications: https://www.mighealth-unipecs.hu/who-cc
