[Resilience after Flight: Perspectives of Refugees and Supporting Practice Actors]

STUDY OBJECTIVES

The study aims to identify (aim 1) and relate (aim 2) refugees' and practice actors' perspectives on resilience after a flight to broaden the depth of understanding of postflight resilience and to provide insights into relationships between practice actors and refugees.

METHODS

Three guideline-based focus groups with refugees (N=9) and practice actors (N=13) to assess the perspectives of both groups on resilience after flight were conducted in German. They were analyzed iteratively according to Constructionist Grounded Theory.

RESULTS

Refugees and practitioners report the strains of uncertainty and limitation, the adaptation processes of commonality and endeavor, and the adaptation goals of stability, connectedness, and positive emotionality (goal 1). The statements of refugees and supporting practice actors on resilience after flight concur strongly regarding their content and complement each other. Refugees report more individualized and more specifically than practice actors (goal 2).

DISCUSSION

The aspects of resilience mentioned by refugees and supporting practitioners replicate the results of previous qualitative studies on post-flight resilience conducted with refugees. Both the strain of partly not knowing adequate adaptation options locally and attempts to create resilience-promoting conditions seem to be specific to the resilience of refugees. The content-related similarities between refugees and practice actors might stem from experiences of the practice actors in the context of support processes or from similar life experiences of the practice actors. The less individualized approach to post-flight resilience of the practice actors may be caused by a higher level of abstraction, role expectations, or coping with emotional distress.

CONCLUSION

The results of the study suggest that refugee resilience is characterized by universal and population-specific aspects. That practice actors who support refugees and refugees concur on the content of post-refugee resilience validates the findings of previous qualitative studies on post-refugee resilience. The study also identified different approaches to post-flight resilience among refugees and practitioners, whose causes require further research.

Parent emigration and physical health of children left behind: a systematic review of literature

Background

The aim of our study was to systematically review the literature on physical health and related consequences of internal and international parental migration on left-behind children (LBC).

Methods

This study followed the PRISMA guidelines. We searched relevant databases for studies published up to 15 May 2020. The quality of the studies was assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies.

Results

We included 34 studies out of 6061 in the final analysis. Results from internal migration shows that compared with children of non-migrant parents, LBC were more susceptible to illness and had a higher prevalence of acute and chronic diseases, have a higher risk of getting injured, were more likely to engage risky behaviours such as unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, and drinking. Studies included in this review found a lower coverage of vaccination among LBC. Results from international migration found that left-behind adolescents reported poorer physical health than non-LBC. It was found that the prevalence of stunting (11.5% vs. 14.8%), wasting (18.1% vs. 21.5%), and underweight (24.3% vs. 26.2%) was lower among LBC as compared with non-LBC, respectively. Physical activity among LBC was lower than non-LBC. We provided comparative analysis of the outcomes of the internal and international migration. We found that, despite the type of migration/region, LBC suffer from poor general health, are at a higher risk of developing poor nutrition, overweight or obesity, addictive behaviours, physical inactivity, lower vaccination coverage, and more frequent injuries than non-LBC.

Conclusions

This study found that both internal and international parental migration is mostly negatively associated with LBC general health, nutrition, weight and height, injuries, and immunization. However, in low- and middle-income countries parental migration might also prevent LBC from undernutrition.

Key messages

Internal and international migration parental migration is negatively associated with child physical health outcomes. Issue is well addressed in China, but there are substantial research gap from other migration affected regions of the world.

Parent Emigration, Physical Health and Related Risk and Preventive Factors of Children Left Behind: A Systematic Review of Literature

The aim of our study was to systematically review the literature on physical health and related consequences of internal and international parental migration on left-behind children (LBC). This review followed PRISMA guidelines. We searched the PubMed, Web of Science, Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, and Cochrane databases and included studies reporting physical health-related outcomes of children affected by parental migration. The quality of the studies was assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies. We selected 34 publications from a total of 6061 search results. The study found that LBC suffer from poor physical health as compared with non-LBC. Physical health-related risk factors such as underweight, lower weight, stunted growth, unhealthy food preferences, lower physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, injuries, and incomplete vaccination tend to be more prevalent among LBC in China. Studies focussing on international migration argue that having migrant parents might be preventive for undernutrition. Overall, our study showed that children affected by internal or international migration tend to have similar physical health outcomes. Moreover, we identified a lack of evidence on international parental migration that may have influenced the overall impacts. Further studies addressing international migration would contribute to better understand the impacts of migration for LBC.