A Critical Analysis of the Drivers of Human Migration Patterns in the Presence of Climate Change: A New Conceptual Model

Living on the slum areas in the shadow of drought: a qualitative analysis of lived experience of migrant households facing drought in Southeast of Iran

BACKGROUND

Drought is one of the most destructive and complex natural hazards, with direct and indirect effects, especially economic effects, on society and households. It affects the well-being and life satisfaction of households. It is important to understand the effects of drought at the micro level, such as households, by examining different attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of drought and its impacts.

METHODS

This research aims to investigate the understanding and experiences of the residents of the poor areas of Kerman city regarding drought and its consequences on their well-being and life satisfaction. To that end, the descriptive phenomenology qualitative method was used, selected samples purposefully, and conducted semi-structured and in-depth interviews with households in August and September 2022. MAXQDA2020 software was used to manage and organize the data.

RESULTS

From the analysis of the results of the interviews with the households, it was shown that the drought, with its impact on the economic, social, family, health, and environmental dimensions, has been identified as five main themes, leading to a decrease in the well-being and life satisfaction of the households.

CONCLUSION

The drought has caused the migration of families from the cities and villages around Kerman province to the outskirts of the city. Subsequently, with the increase in the population in the outskirts of the city, the problem of waterlessness has increased. As a result, the welfare and life satisfaction of households have decreased.

Providing HIV Treatment during community-wide flooding: experiences of clients and Health Care Workers in Malawi

Background

In Malawi, community wide flooding, especially in high HIV burdened districts, continues to affect continuity of care and access to facilities. We explored the lived experiences of clients and healthcare workers (HCWs) to gain understanding of challenges and to propose interventions for improved ART care delivery.

Methods

Participants came six health facilities and surrounding communities impacted by flooding between Dec 2021-Apr 2022 in Chikwawa, Nsanje and Mulanje districts in Malawi. Facilities are supported by Partners in Hope, a local NGO and PEPFAR/USAID partner.We conducted In-depth interviews with (IDIs) ART clients identified through medical chart reviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) with HCWs. IDIs and FGDs were coded using inductive and deductive methods in Atlas.ti.

Results

We conducted IDIs with 23 respondents, of which, ten were women, ten experienced treatment interruption (>28 days without medication) and 17 relocated from their homes. The Six FGDs involved 37 HCWs. (21 ART providers; 16 lay cadre).In IDIs, most clients who relocated and lost livestock, possessions and ART medications. They travelling for income generation. Barriers to care included dangerous travel conditions, competing needs for time and fear of ill treatment at facilities. Some outreach clinics did not provide ART. Respondents were motivated to remain on care and motivators included fear of developing illnesses and HIV-status acceptance.All providers said that lack of standardized guidelines affected preparedness and response and they advocated for guidelines, stakeholder coordination and adequate resources. Most also reported personal physical exhaustion, damage to their own houses and property, and drug stock-outs. Documentation due to loss of registers was also mostly mentioned.

Discussion

Clients motivated to remain in care but face barriers and challenges. National flooding protocols, adequate resource planning and seasonal 6-month ART dispensing may improve ART outcomes.

Spatial impacts of the intercity flow of long stay international visitors based on mobile phone data in Yangtze River Delta, China

The intercity daily flow of long stay international visitors (LSIV) reflects the economic globalisation and regional integration of a region. We made the first attempt to use mobile phone data to identify international visitors who stayed longer than one month in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region in 2019, analysed the spatial patterns of LSIV, and revealed the impact factors associated with the daily intercity flow of LSIV. We discussed spatial dependence using multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR), and performed cluster analysis to understand the combination effects. The results show that enterprises have the largest effect, AQI and administrative hierarchy have relatively low effects, and income, imports and exports do not have any significant effect. Overall, the economically developed eastern regions of the YRD region are more attractive for daily travel by LSIV, with the Shanghai metropolitan area being the most attractive. Our findings provide new insights into the relationship between the intercity daily flow of LSIV and the urban economy and society in the delta region to help suggest planning recommendations to enhance the globalisation development strategy and provide a better environment for international visitors in the delta region.

TURNING UP THE HEAT: A CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR UNDERSTANDING THE MIGRATION AND HEALTH IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Background

The triangular relationship between climate change-related events, patterns of human migration and their implications for health is an important yet understudied issue. To improve understanding of this complex relationship, a comprehensive, interdisciplinary conceptual model will be useful. This paper investigates relationships between these factors and considers their impacts for affected populations globally.

Methods

A desk review of key literature was undertaken. An open-ended questionnaire consisting of 11 items was designed focusing on three themes: predicting population migration by understanding key variables, health implications, and suggestions on policy and research. After using purposive sampling we selected nine experts, reflecting diverse regional and professional backgrounds directly related to our research focus area. All responses were thematically analysed and key themes from the survey were synthesised to construct the conceptual model focusing on describing the relationship between global climate change, migration and health implications and a second model focusing on actionable suggestions for organisations working in the field, academia and policymakers.

Results

Key themes which constitute our conceptual model included: a description of migrant populations perceived to be at risk; health characteristics associated with different migratory patterns; health implications for both migrants and host populations; the responsibilities of global and local governance actors; and social and structural determinants of health. Less prominent themes were aspects related to slow-onset migratory patterns, voluntary stay, and voluntary migration. Actionable suggestions include an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to study the phenomenon for academicians, preparedness and globalized training and awareness for field organisations and migrant inclusive and climate sensitive approach for policymakers.

Conclusion

Contrary to common narratives, participants framed the impacts of climate change-related events on migration patterns and their health implications as non-linear and indirect, comprising many interrelated individual, social, cultural, demographic, geographical, structural, and political determinants. An understanding of these interactions in various contexts is essential for risk reduction and preventative measures. The way forward broadly includes inclusive and equity-based health services, improved and faster administrative systems, less restrictive (im)migration policies, globally trained staff, efficient and accessible research, and improved emergency response capabilities. The focus should be to increase preventative and adaptation measures in the face of any environmental changes and respond efficiently to different phases of migration to aim for better "health for all and promote universal well-being" (WHO) (World Health Organization 1999).

Where do migrants and natives belong in a community: a Twitter case study and privacy risk analysis

Today, many users are actively using Twitter to express their opinions and to share information. Thanks to the availability of the data, researchers have studied behaviours and social networks of these users. International migration studies have also benefited from this social media platform to improve migration statistics. Although diverse types of social networks have been studied so far on Twitter, social networks of migrants and natives have not been studied before. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying characteristics and behaviours of migrants and natives on Twitter. To do so, we perform a general assessment of features including profiles and tweets, and an extensive network analysis on the network. We find that migrants have more followers than friends. They have also tweeted more despite that both of the groups have similar account ages. More interestingly, the assortativity scores showed that users tend to connect based on nationality more than country of residence, and this is more the case for migrants than natives. Furthermore, both natives and migrants tend to connect mostly with natives. The homophilic behaviours of users are also well reflected in the communities that we detected. Our additional privacy risk analysis showed that Twitter data can be safely used without exposing sensitive information of the users, and minimise risk of re-identification, while respecting GDPR.

Understanding internal migration in the UK before and during the COVID-19 pandemic using twitter data

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected internal migration patterns and may last beyond the pandemic. It raises the need to monitor the migration in an economical, effective and timely way. Benefitting from the advancement of geolocation data collection techniques, we used near real-time and fine-grained Twitter data to monitor migration patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic, dated from January 2019 to December 2021. Based on geocoding and estimating home locations, we proposed five indices depicting migration patterns, which are demonstrated by applying an empirical study at national and local authority scales to the UK. Our findings point to complex social processes unfolding differently over space and time. In particular, the pandemic and lockdown policies significantly reduced the rate of migration. Furthermore, we found a trend of people moving out of large cities to the nearby rural areas, and also conjunctive cities if there is one, before and during the peak of the pandemic. The trend of moving to rural areas became more significant in 2020 and most people who moved out had not returned by the end of 2021, although large cities recovered more quickly than other regions. Our results of monthly migration matrixes are validated to be consistent with official migration flow data released by the Office for National Statistics, but have finer temporal granularity and can be updated more frequently. This study demonstrates that Twitter data is highly valuable for migration trend analysis despite the biases in population representation.