New migrants may experience a range of unique healthcare needs, depending on their personal history or migration experiences, for example as humanitarian refugees or asylum seekers.
They can face challenges navigating a new and unfamiliar healthcare system and accessing the support they require. Our work aims to improve health equity for these communities.
Much like culturally and linguistically diverse communities, migrants can experience unique challenges or barriers to accessing healthcare, and are therefore at higher risk of poorer health outcomes. This can be a result of their migration experience, previous history of engaging with healthcare systems, recent arrival and unfamiliarity of the Australian system, limited access to interpreters, limited health literacy (or reduced health literacy with English), or unconscious systemic bias and discrimination by the healthcare system about their needs.
Our work aims to identify barriers experienced by migrant communities and recommend evidence-based solutions so that no one is left behind in the pursuit of better health for all.
Migrant communities give input and advise us on our work and this informs our research and treatment practice responses.
This includes:
- community surveys and forums to understand behaviours and identify emerging issues
- a Community Engagement Group made up of 12 community leaders from a range of multicultural communities, who provide further review and insights into our findings.
Migrants are considered in a diverse range of our research topics. Notably, we have conducted specific research into the gaps in the rates of HIV diagnosis and treatment for migrants in Australia.
