Health challenges in refugee resettlement: An innovative multi-sector partnership to improve the continuum of care for resettled refugees

Refugee resettlement is a highly complex process that may hold lessons for the larger realm of migration medicine. As more and more people are displaced by war, climate change, political strife, and economic disparities, migration medicine is becoming an increasingly important component of travel medicine. A recent partnership between the International Organization for Migration/United Nations Agency for Migration (IOM), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the University of Minnesota (UMN), and other Minnesota-based organizations has evolved to address the medical needs of migrating refugees, particularly those with complex health needs. The goal of the partnership is to improve a fractured health system during the migration process and to build the capacity of IOM and US-based refugee clinicians to improve the continuum of care delivered to refugees. In this article, we describe our experience with this partnership which may hold lessons for others developing programs to improve the health of displaced populations during their migration journey.