Publications Search
This publications portal is a repository of all IOM migration health publications from 2006 to present where IOM was a primary contributor.
Publications include peer-reviewed scientific papers, technical reports, training guides/manuals, policy briefs/discussion papers, factsheets, newsletters, research reviews, conference and poster presentations. These are categorized by topic, author, country/region covered as well as by year, language, and type of publication. The map reflects the countries covered by the publications.
To browse or search: simply use the filter options on the left-hand side. Alternatively, you can enter keyword/s in the search box. Selecting a specific publication will lead to a ‘download’ link or link to the website where the document is housed. Here is the step-by-step guide for your reference.

COVID-19 among migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons: systematic review, meta-analysis and qualitative synthesis of the global empirical literature
Author/s: Maren Hintermeier, Nora Gottlieb, Sven Rohleder, Jan Oppenberg, Mazen Baroudi, Sweetmavourneen Pernitez-Agan, Janice Lopez, Sergio Flores, Amir Mohsenpour, Kolitha Wickramage, Kayvan Bozorgmehr
Background: Pandemic response and preparedness plans aim at mitigating the spread of infectious diseases and protecting public health, but migrants are often side-lined. Evidence amounted early that migrants are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. However, synthesised evidence is lacking that quantifies the inequalities in infection risk and disease outcomes, or contextualises the consequences of pandemic measures and their underlying…
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Migrant workers and zoonotic health inequalities in the livestock production sector
Author/s: Dorien Braam, Kolitha Wickramage, Patrick Duigan
This working paper highlights the urgent need to address the risk of zoonoses—diseases transmissible between animals and humans—to migrant workers in the livestock product value chain, arguing for the inclusion of migrants into evidence-building and actions for multilevel and interdisciplinary zoonotic disease prevention and control.

Immunisation status of UK-bound refugees between January, 2018, and October, 2019: a retrospective, population-based cross-sectional study
Author/s: Anna Deal, Sally E Hayward, Alison F Crawshaw, Lucy P Goldsmith, Charles Hui, Warren Dalal, Fatima Wurie, Mary-Ann Bautista, May Antonnette Lebanan, Sweetmavourneen Agan, Farah Amin Hassan, Kolitha Wickramage, Ines Campos-Matos, Sally Hargreaves
Summary
Background
WHO’s new Immunization Agenda 2030 places a focus on ensuring migrants and other marginalised groups are offered catch-up vaccinations across the life-course. Yet, it is not known to what extent specific groups, such as refugees, are immunised according to host country schedules, and the implications for policy and practice. We aimed to assess the immunisation coverage of UK-bound refugees undergoing International Organization for…

Refugees, migrants, internally displaced people and COVID-19: protocol for an updated systematic review
Author/s: Maren Hintermeier, Amir Mohsenpour, Nora Gottlieb, Sergio Flores, Rohleder Sven, Sweetmavourneen Pernitez-Agan, Janice Lopez, Kolitha Wickramage, Kayvan Bozorgmehr
The review protocol is in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff, & Altman, 2009), and is essentially an update of the protocol (Hintermeier et al., 2020) of a previously published review on the topic (Hintermeier et al., 2021).
The search strategy is twofold. Firstly, we will use the database provided by the WHO of global literature on coronavirus disease (https://search.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-…
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Adopting an ethical approach to migration health policy, practice and research
Author/s: Kristine Husøy Onarheim, Kolitha Wickramage, David Ingleby, Supriya Subramani, Ingrid Miljeteig
Abstract
Migration health is affected by decision-making at levels ranging from global to local, both within and beyond the health sector. These decisions impact seeking, entitlements, service delivery, policy-making, and knowledge production on migration health. It is key that ethical challenges faced by decision-makers are recognized and addressed in research and data, clinical practice, and policy making on migration health. An ethical approach can provide methods to…

Migrant health is public health: a call for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines
Author/s: Amani Al-Oraibi, Christopher A Martin, Osama Hassan, Kolitha Wickramage, Laura B Nellums, Manish Pareek
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) there are about 1 billion international and internal migrants worldwide, and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that 80 million migrants are forcibly displaced. Inclusion of these populations in COVID-19 vaccination plans is essential.

Migrant and Refugee Health: Complex health associations among diverse contexts call for tailored and rights-based solutions
Author/s: Paul Spiegel, Kolitha Wickramage, Terry McGovern
Migration is a natural state of humankind and has been documented throughout history. Some people may flee violence and persecution, while others simply seek a better life. Although migration is often classified into these two basic categories, the reality is more complex and nuanced: people migrate for a myriad of interconnected cultural, economic, religious, ethnic, and political reasons. Depending upon the epoch, migration has been seen in a positive or negative light. Currently, the…
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Assessing the Health of Persons Experiencing Forced Migration: Current Practices for Health Service Organisations. In: Bozorgmehr K., Roberts B., Razum O., Biddle L. (eds) Health Policy and Systems Responses to Forced Migration
Author/s: Dominik Zenner, Kolitha Wickramage, Ursula Trummer, Kevin Pottie, Chuck Hui
This chapter looks at the current evidence and practice of health assessments amongst persons, who experienced forced migration, including asylum seekers and refugees. It places health assessments into its historical context and outlines national and international frameworks relevant to these. The main body of the chapter reviews the current practice in health assessments alongside the policy framework and evidence and provides specific examples from countries. Doing so, it also outlines…
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Bibliometric Analysis of COVID-19 in the Context of Migration Health: A Study Protocol
Author/s: Sweetmavourneen Pernitez-Agan, Mary Ann Bautista, Janice Lopez, Margaret Sampson, Kolitha Wickramage
Introduction: Human mobility has been pivotal to the spread of COVID-19 through travel and migration. To mitigate the spread, most countries have imposed strict travel restrictions that have severely affected both the wellbeing and livelihoods of many migrant and mobile populations (both internally and internationally), particularly those from impoverished communities, those affected by humanitarian crises, including populations displaced and/or living in camps and camp-like settings. The…
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Targeting COVID-19 interventions towards migrants in humanitarian settings
Author/s: Sally Hargreaves, Dominik Zenner, Kolitha Wickramage, Anna Deal, Sally E Hayward
Millions of refugees and migrants reside in countries devastated by protracted conflicts with weakened health systems, and in countries where they are forced to live in substandard conditions in camps and compounds, and high-density slum settings. Although many such settings have yet to feel the full impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the pandemic is now having an unprecedented impact on mobility, in terms of border and migration management, as well as on the health, social, and…
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