Migrant Health: A Primary Care Perspective

by Bernadette Kumar (Editor), Esperanza Diaz (Editor)

Overview

In this time of large-scale global migration at levels unrivalled since World War II, primary care practitioners are providing the first line of care to economic immigrants and refugees. In doing so, they face daily the considerable challenges that this heterogenic group brings in terms of communication, culture, and legal status as well as physical and mental health. This accessible book has been carefully crafted to enable primary health care professionals to develop the skills and competencies required to deliver appropriate services to this diverse group of patients and, in turn, to ensure equity in health care for all.

Key features:

• Highly practical focus, with clinical cases, learning objectives, concept and ‘What this Means in Practice’ boxes, and ‘Practical Tools for Meeting the Patient’ sections
• Covers widely applicable themes in health care including health literacy, communication, the cultures and sub-cultures of systems
• Fully referenced, combining policy, academic literature and practical advice with a broad international scope
• Prestigious author team with chapters written by international contributors with in-depth subject expertise curated by expert editors
• Endorsed and supported by the WONCA Special Interest Group on Migrant Care, International Health and Travel Medicine

The book satisfies the urgent need for a hands-on guide to support and help general practitioners and other members of the primary health care team improve their provision of care not only to immigrants, but to other vulnerable groups and the whole society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351017176
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	06/10/2019
Series:	ISSN
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Bernadette N. Kumar is a medical graduate from India, with a doctorate in Epidemiology and Public Health from the University of Oslo, Norway and post doc post-doctoral research fellowship at the Institute for Psychiatry, University of Oslo. Kumar has several years' international experience working for UNICEF, WHO, WFP, World Bank and NORAD in Asia en Africa (1989-2000). Migration and Health has been the focus of her research and she is the co-editor a text book on Immigrant Health in Norway. She was appointed Director of the Norwegian Center for Migration and Minority Health in 2010 and Associate Professor, Global Health at the Institute for Health and Society, University of Oslo in 2013. She has been a commissioner of the Lancet Commission on Migration and Health (2018). Currently she works at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and is the President of the EUPHA section of Migration and Ethnic Minority Health.

Esperanza Diaz studied medicine and became specialist in Family Medicine in Madrid, Spain. In 1999 she moved to Norway, where she was certified Norwegian specialist in Family Medicine and took her PhD at the University of Bergen. She has for many years worked as a General Practitioner with a hugely diverse population. She works as Associate Professor at the Institute for Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, and as a senior researcher at the Unit for Migration and Health at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health. Diaz has several publications in the field of immigrant health. She volunteers for a local non-profit organization providing care for undocumented migrants.

Table of Contents

Preface Foreward Background information Part 1: Overarching Themes 1. Migration and immigrants 2. Migration health theories: healthy migrant effect and allostatic load. Can both be true? 3. Culture, language and the clinic - three stories, two keys 4. The Ethics of Migrant Health: Power and Privilege versus Rights and Entitlements 5. Discrimination and health 6. Immigrants’ use of primary health care services: overuse, underuse or both? Part 2: A life course perspective on migrant health 7. Promoting the Health of Migrant Children and Children of Immigrants 8. Adolescent migrant health 9. Health care for older and elderly immigrants 10. Family and group as a unit of care Part 3: Health challenges at the clinic 11. Gynaecology and obstetrics 12. Chronic disease prevention and management: an understated priority 13. Understanding unexplained and complex symptoms and diseases 14. Cancer among immigrant patients 15. Immigration and Mental health 16. Multimorbidity- the complexity Part 4: Opportunities and tools when meeting immigrant patients 17. Bridging Cultural and Language Discordance 18. Evidence Based Guidelines and Advocacy 19. Diversity sensitive versus adapted services for immigrants: the example of dementia care in Germany 20. Assessments tools for dementia an depression in older immigrants 21. Community participation in primary healthcare: meaningful involvement of immigrants

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Vincent F Carr, DO, MSA, FACC, FACP (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences)
Description: This book on the diagnosis and treatment of migrants is endorsed by the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA).
Purpose: The preface notes that the main thrust of research on migrant populations has been on demographics, with relatively little attention to the migrant population's health and medical needs. This is a major consideration as the diversity of the world is ever increasing. This book begins to address this deficiency in the literature.
Audience: The audience for this book is extremely broad including clinicians in all specialties who may be called on to diagnose and treat these diverse populations; legislators and policymakers who shape public health policies; and social service agencies who are often called upon to provide care for these populations. The authors have assembled an extraordinary group of contributors, experts in their fields, who share their extensive experience.
Features: The book is divided into four parts, each one containing chapters on specific topics such as culture, language, and the clinic; adolescent migrant health; understanding and evidence-based guidelines and advocacy; unexplained and complex symptoms. Each chapter outlines learning objectives and has key points and case vignettes with discussions. The extensive use of tables and figures makes the concepts easy to understand.
Assessment: This is an outstanding monograph on the medical and psychological considerations clinicians must keep in mind when caring for a person who has immigrated to a land with different customs and lifestyles. The book offers insights that clinicians usually are not exposed to in their training programs. The book also is a tremendous asset for clinicians who participate in medical missions to developing areas, sensitizing them to the cultures they may not have experience with.

Doody's Review Service

"This is an outstanding monograph on the medical and psychological considerations clinicians must keep in mind when caring for a person who has immigrated to a land with different customs and lifestyles. The book offers insights that clinicians usually are not exposed to in their training programs. The book also is a tremendous asset for clinicians who participate in medical missions to developing areas, sensitizing them to the cultures they may not have experience with."
Vincent F Carr, DO, MSA, FACC, FACP(Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences)

"The chapters are very well referenced, and despite the evident diversity of countries and health care systems presented here, readers can easily apply authors' evidence-based suggestions and conclusions to local situations. University libraries supporting programs for health professionals, including not only future physicians and nurses but also social workers, would do well to acquire this book. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through graduate students and practitioners."

--T. D. DeLapp, emerita, University of Alaska Anchorage, CHOICE Reviews

This is an outstanding monograph on the medical and psychological considerations clinicians must keep in mind when caring for a person who has immigrated to a land with different customs and lifestyles. The book offers insights that clinicians usually are not exposed to in their training programs. The book also is a tremendous asset for clinicians who participate in medical missions to developing areas, sensitizing them to the cultures they may not have experience with.
Vincent F Carr, DO, MSA, FACC, FACP(Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences)

From the Publisher