Migrant health research in the Republic of Ireland: a scoping review

BACKGROUND

Migration to European countries has increased in number and diversity in recent years. Factors such as access to healthcare, language barriers and legal status can impact the health outcomes of migrant groups. However, little is known about the evidence base on the health status of migrants in the Republic of Ireland. Our aim was to scope existing peer-reviewed research on the health of migrants in Ireland and identify any gaps in the evidence.

METHODS

We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed research on the health of migrants in the Republic of Ireland. Eleven electronic databases were searched for peer-reviewed, empirical articles published between 2001 and 2017. Search terms were adapted from a World Health Organisation review. Findings were analysed using the 2016 World Health Organisation Strategy and Action Plan for Refugee and Migrant Health in the World Health Organisation European region, which outlines nine strategic areas that require collaborative action.

RESULTS

Of 9396 articles retrieved, 80 met inclusion criteria, with the majority (81%) published since 2009. More than half of the studies had a quantitative design (65%). Migrants studied came from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa and included labour migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Most studies related to two World Health Organisation strategic areas; 4: "achieving public health preparedness and ensuring an effective response", and 5: "strengthening health systems and their resilience".

CONCLUSION

There is growing attention to migrant health in Ireland with a balance of qualitative and quantitative research. While much of the identified research is relevant to three of the World Health Organisation strategic areas, there are significant gaps in the other six areas. The study design could be replicated in other countries to examine and inform migrant health research.

Ethnic Minority Health in Ireland-Co-creating knowledge (EMH-IC): a participatory health research protocol

INTRODUCTION

International policy recommends continuous, cost-effective monitoring of health data to enable health services to identify and respond to health inequities as experienced by different ethnic groups. However, there is a lack of routinely collected ethnicity data, particularly in primary care, and very little implementation research internationally to understand how ethnic identifiers are introduced, embedded and used in healthcare settings. This paper describes a protocol for a novel participatory health research project with the objective of building the evidence base on ethnic minority health in Ireland. Findings on the participatory appraisal of ethnic identifiers as an intervention to generate useful data about minority and majority ethnic groups will have relevance in other settings and countries.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

This multidisciplinary project is designed as a participatory health research study where all stakeholders, including ethnic minority communities, participate in co-design of the research protocol, project governance, collaborative data interpretation and disseminating findings. A national catalogue of all routinely collected health data repositories will be electronically searched for any repositories that contain information on ethnicity. A secondary quantitative analysis of a population-representative cohort study, Growing Up in Ireland, will be carried out to compare the health of ethnic minority and majority groups. A qualitative case study informed by normalisation process theory will be carried out at three primary care sites to monitor the implementation of an ethnic identifier and identify barriers and levers to implementation.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethical approval for the qualitative case study has been granted by the Irish Council for General Practitioners (06/09/17). Permission to access data from Growing Up in Ireland has been granted by the Director General of the Central Statistics Office. Dissemination will be carried out at community events and academic conferences, in peer-reviewed journal publications, and through academic and healthcare provider networks.