Migration, displacement and health systems – podcast
‘Stories of Resilience – Local Lives and Health Systems’ is a podcast series from ReBUILD for Resilience. Each episode examines a different resilience-related topic, with a particular focus on fragile and shock-prone settings.
In this fifth episode – ‘Migration, displacement and health systems’ – we examine the intersection of migration, displacement, and health systems in fragile settings. With over 1 billion people on the move globally, including 84 million forcibly displaced, this episode addresses the challenges and opportunities that migration presents to health systems.
Read a transcript of this podcast here.
The speakers
The series is produced by The SCL Agency [opens new tab] with Dr Kim Ozano hosting each instalment. In this episode Kim chatted with:
Dr Joanna Raven – Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Jo has worked in global health for more than 25 years, focusing on strengthening health systems. Jo is a researcher with a passion for co-designing and implementing health system research with local stakeholders including community members, health workers, health managers and decision makers. As a health worker herself, Jo’s work focuses on supporting the health workforce to deliver people-centred care that is of good quality and leaves no one behind.
Dr Fouad Fouad – American University of Beirut
Fouad has extensive research on migration and health, focusing on multidisciplinary approaches to forced displacement, health systems in humanitarian settings, and the political economy of health in protracted crises. Fouad is also the IDRC Chair of the Forced Displacement Program in the Middle East and the Co-Director of the Refugee Health Program at the Global Health Institute. He is a member of several technical working groups including the WHO Global Consultation on the Health of Migrants and Refugees and the Global Research Agenda on Health and Migration. Fouad served as a commissioner in the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health (2018) and is currently a commissioner in the CHH-Lancet Commission on Health, Conflict, and Forced Migration [open new tabs].
Dr Santino Severoni – Department of Health and Migration, World Health Organization [opens new tab]
Santino is the Director of the Department of Health and Migration at WHO headquarters in Geneva. With more than 24 years’ experience, he has held senior roles at the WHO Regional Office for Europe and worked globally in health sector reforms, system strengthening, and complex emergency management. His career includes serving as a WHO Representative in Albania and Tajikistan. Since 2011, he has focused on public health aspects of migration, leading efforts to implement global migration and refugee compacts and coordinating WHO’s first World Report on the Health of Refugees and Migrants [opens new tab].
The Stories of Resilience podcast series
- Episode 1: Revisiting resilience in health systems research
- Episode 2: Gender, health systems resilience and equity
- Episode 3: The health workforce in times of crisis
- Episode 4: Non-State and Informal Actors in Fragile Settings
- Episode 5: Migration, displacement and health systems
- Episode 6: Health systems financing in fragile settings
Further information
The following are papers and studies mentioned in this podcast and other resources that may be of interest [all open in new tabs]:
- Video: Forced migration and health systems: a proposal for a new approach – a presentation by Fouad Fouad
- Article in The Lancet – Fouad M Fouad: enriching the dialogue on displacement and health
- WHO Health and Migration Programme – resources here
- Compendium referenced by Santino Severoni – Promoting the health of refugees and migrants: experiences from around the world
- Technical document: WHO global action plan on promoting the health of refugees and migrants, 2019–2030
- WHO publication: Essential public health functions: a guide to map and measure national workforce capacity