Health Challenges among Afghan immigrants and refugees in Iran
Citation: Hosseini Divkolaye NS, Burkle FM. The Enduring Health Challenges of Afghan Immigrants and Refugees in Iran: A Systematic Review. PLoS Currents Disasters. 2017:9.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: No external funding.
What is this? Iran has the third largest population of refugees in the world, mostly from Afghanistan. In this systematic review, the authors searched for studies that investigated the health of Afghan immigrants and refugees in Iran. They restricted their searches to articles published between November 2010 and November 2016 in English or Persian. The authors included 86 articles.
What was found: Afghan migrants had a higher risk of communicable diseases, higher prevalence of mental disorders, and worse food insecurity, when compared to the Iranian population. Many Afghan migrants, particularly undocumented refugees, lacked access or faced barriers to healthcare services, which exacerbated health challenges for this population.
Implications: The authors of the review stated that, while there have been efforts since 2016 by the Iranian government and intergovernmental agencies to improve healthcare access for Afghan migrants, current solutions overlook the situation of undocumented Afghan refugees. The authors recommended a comprehensive, multi-sectoral, long-term strategy that included undocumented Afghan migrants.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of race and place of residence.
This summary was prepared by Isabelle Tahmazian, checked by Jawaria Karim, and finalized by William Summerskill.