Report on the health of refugees and migrants in the WHO European Region: no public health without refugee and migrant health (2018)

Overview

While population displacement and migration has always been salient aspects of human societies, it is since the mid-2000s that its health aspects have grown in the attention of the 53 Member States of the WHO European Region. In 2017, there were more than 90 million international migrants living in the Region, amounting to almost 10% of the total population of the Region and 35% of the global international migrants (1). There is wide variation among Member States in both the proportion of international migrants in the country (e.g. 45% in Malta and less than 2% in Albania; Annex1) and in the refugee and migration-related health policy priorities and systems. For many countries, displace-ment and migration are major aspects of population dynamics, and Member States may concurrently act as places of origin, transit and/or destination for refu-gees and migrants. Additionally, many Member States are seeing a significant increase in the number of ref-ugees and migrants against a much slower change in the host population, reflecting declining birthrates and ageing populations (Fig. 1.1). International migrants can, therefore, often help to fill the labour needs of the host country. Labour migrants form the largest group globally (2).