The Health, Border and Mobility Management (HBMM) Framework articulates IOM’s strategic role and objectives in the prevention, detection, and response to communicable diseases in the context of widespread and multi-directional human mobility. It provides an action framework for IOM to undertake activities related to health, border, and mobility management and serves as a reference for the IOM Member States and partners to understand the Organization’s role and contributions in this area of work. 

As COVID-19 vaccine roll-out begins in the MENA region, ensuring migrant populations have equitable access to the vaccine, designing innovative and specific mechanisms for vaccine roll-out in these areas, and monitoring vaccine uptake in migrant groups are now imminent challenges.

In this systematic review we are trying to answer these specific questions: What is the immunisation coverage among migrant populations in North Africa for key vaccines, and are there variations among migrant subpopulations? Where and by who are vaccines administered to migrant populations? What are the key delivery mechanisms (IOM, NGOs, government structures)? What are the barriers and facilitators to migrant populations accessing vaccines in this region?

The year 2020 was a landmark for human mobility, with dramatically reduced cross-border movements of all kinds. The COVID-19 pandemic decimated tourism and business travel; severely curtailed labour migration; and dampened movement of all stripes, from that of international students to family reunification. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been tracking the surge in travel restrictions, border closures and health-related travel requirements imposed by governments since the onset of the pandemic.

This issue of the Bulletin features peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, reports, and commentaries focusing on some of IOM’s migration health programmes such as mental health and psychosocial support, vaccination, tuberculosis screening, and public health emergency management.

Two interviews are included in the current episode of the audio podcast: one on the vaccination programme for US-bound refugees globally and the other on migration health governance in Africa.

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. 

This chapter analyses legal and factual aspects of the provision of mental health care for migrants in the European Union (EU), framing migrants’ access to mental health care within the wider contexts of migration in the EU, the EU’s policies for migrants’ integration and access to health care, and EU policies on mental health care for all. The rates of various psychiatric disorders may vary across migrant groups and host populations.

The chapter presents the Global Compact on Migration, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and other global governance instruments, focusing on their links with mental health of migrants. The possibility to limit some of the stressors that accompany certain migration paths, and to promote all migrants’ access to mental health care in new countries of residence is enshrined in these documents.

Migration is a social determinant of health. Throughout the migration process, migrants are exposed to a unique set of sociocultural, economic and environmental factors that may increase their risk of exposure to negative health outcomes, including communicable and non-communicable diseases. Migrants and mobile populations can face many obstacles in accessing essential health care services due to several factors including irregular immigration status, language barriers, discrimination, a lack of migrant-inclusive health policies and lack of affordable health services.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) features health as a cross-cutting priority with references to health and healthcare access in several objectives.