Systematic review of occupational health in migrants published in The Lancet Global Health

A group of researchers including Dr Rob Aldridge (Institute of Health Informatics (IHI)) published their paper entitled ‘Occupational health outcomes among international migrant workers: a systematic review and meta-analysis’ in The Lancet Global Health today.

Despite there being more than 150 million international migrant workers globally, little data on occupational health outcomes of these workers exists. Migrant workers are individuals who are employed outside of their country of origin and they comprise the largest international migrant group. Popular migrant destinations are high-income countries such as North America, northern, southern and western Europe and the Middle East which provide opportunities for work and employment.

However, work and employment in these countries can expose migrants to considerable hardships in the form of long working hours and dangerous working environments which have implications for their health and wellbeing. For example, migrant workers might be at increased risk of poor mental health outcomes, perinatal mortality, and increased injury compared with native workers, outcomes that are attributable to poor working and living conditions, inadequate labour protection measures, and limited entitlements to health care. Despite this being the case, there is little data on occupational health outcomes of migrant workers  with which to inform global policy making and delivery of health services.

This group of researchers searched Embase, MEDLINE, Ovid Global Health and PsychINFO databases for primary research published between Jan 1, 2008 and Jan 24, 2018 to carry out a systematic review and meta-analysis. They reported occupational health outcomes among international migrant workers, without language or geographical restrictions. This method identified 1218 studies; 36 were included in the systematic review (involving 12,168 international migrants) and 18 studies were included in the meta-analysis (involving 7,260 international migrants).

This study provides a comprehensive summary of the burden of occupational morbidity and injury among migrant workers worldwide, and demonstrates the urgent need for greater progress toward universal health coverage and worker rights.

To read the full paper visit this address: www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(19)30204-9/fulltext#%20

Hargreaves, S., Rustage, K., Nellums, L. B., Mcalpine, A., Pocock, N., Devakumar, D., et al (2019). Occupational health outcomes among international migrant workers : a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Global Health, (19), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(19)30204-9