Youth health promotion in countries affected by forced migration: The role of mHealth technologies

Issue/problem

Young refugees often face barriers in accessing youth-friendly health information and care. Differing cultural norms, languages, laws, financial difficulties, gender disparities, and stigma pose additional challenges for youth in forced migration settings.

Description of the practice

REACH is a regional initiative of Columbia University, which aims to bridge the gap in health literacy and health care access among refugee and disadvantaged youth in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, which are heavily affected by the Syrian conflict. Supported by TaiwanICDF, Blue Chip Foundation, and Columbia University, the REACH Project uses a community-based participatory action research approach and aims to assess the impact of mHealth technologies on improving health literacy and health care access among youth in host countries. With a strong adult-youth partnership, the project includes stakeholder meetings, mixed-methods studies with youth, health service providers and policy makers, in addition to health advocacy, communication and dissemination activities such as photo exhibitions, panels, and production of policy briefs and scientific publications. REACH has been working with youth, software developers, health professionals, academia, and I/NGOs to develop the multilingual and freely available REACH4Health app to promote youth health.

Results

Findings from three countries show that mHealth technologies have the potential to provide innovative, youth-friendly and widely used solutions to address the health education, health communication, and health care needs of disadvantaged and marginalized youth.

Lessons

Youth-adult partnerships, working with mixed groups of refugee and local youth, using community-based participatory research, peer-to-peer methodologies, and co-design approaches, as well as using social media tools contribute to the overall success of mHealth and health promotion interventions for disadvantaged youth in countries affected by forced migration.

Key messages

• mHealth technologies have a strong potential to improve health literacy and health care access of refugee and disadvantaged youth in countries affected by forced migration.

• Youth-adult partnerships, working with mixed groups of refugee and local youth, using participatory approaches and peer-to-peer methodologies significantly contribute to youth health interventions.

Unusual case of classic testicular seminoma in a 90-year-old patient: a case report

BACKGROUND

Seminoma is the most common subtype of testicular cancer and occurs most commonly in patients aged 30-49 years, but decreases to a very low level in men in their 60s or older.

CASE PRESENTATION

A 90-year-old Syrian man with a 6-year history of an increase in size of his right scrotum, presented to the urological clinic and, on clinical examination, the findings suggested testicular tumor. After orchiectomy and histology results based on microscopic and immunohistochemical examinations, a pure seminoma was diagnosed, so we describe in this case report the second-oldest patient with classical seminoma in the medical literature.

CONCLUSION

This case report has been written to focus on the probability of any type of testicular tumor occurring at any age or decade; urologists should consider seminoma as a differential diagnosis with any testicular swelling even in elderly patients.

The future of transcranial magnetic stimulation in neuroscience and neurology in the Middle East

OBJECTIVE

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive technique for brain stimulation often used as a diagnostic and therapeutic therapy in neuroscience and psychiatry for different diseases including epilepsy, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and treatment-resistant major depressive disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Recent studies have shown the enhanced benefits of using TMS for its potential to provoke changes in the physiological processing of the human brain.

RESULTS

In the current review article, emphasis will be placed on both the applications of TMS as well as the different types of TMS used to benefit subjects with epilepsy, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. Furthermore, we aim at discussing the potential of using TMS for the treatment of neurological diseases.

CONCLUSIONS

By paying special consideration to a Middle Eastern context, we aimed at illustrating the possibilities that TMS could bring for clinicians and patients in this nationally prioritized research field.