Social prescribing for migrants in the United Kingdom
Citation: Zhang CX, Wurie F, Browne A, et al. Social prescribing for migrants in the United Kingdom: A systematic review and call for evidence. Journal of Migration and Health. 2021;4:100067.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: The authors report that this review did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
What is this? Social prescribing links individuals to services that address the wider determinants of health and wellbeing, beyond health care. Evidence on its effects for migrant populations may be helpful to policy makers and practitioners considering the implementation of social prescribing.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for studies on social prescribing approaches for migrants in the United Kingdom (UK), the experiences of migrants after referral to social prescribing activities and the effects of social prescribing on the physical, mental and overall well-being of migrants. They did not restrict their searches by type of publication and included studies published between 1 January 2000 and June 2020. They included 32 reports and assessed the overall body of evidence to be of low quality.
What was found? Social prescribing approaches for migrants in the UK varied widely between programmes.
The authors of the review concluded that evidence for improvements to health and wellbeing and changes in healthcare use were largely anecdotal and lacked measures of effect. They noted that improved self-esteem, confidence, empowerment and social connectivity were frequently described.
Facilitators for social prescribing included provider responsiveness to migrants’ preferences in relation to language, culture, gender and service delivery format.
Barriers to social prescribing included limited funding and provider capability.
Implications: The authors of this review concluded that social prescribing programmes should be tailored to the individual needs of migrants and that people involved in implementing social prescribing require appropriate training on how to support migrants to address the wider determinants of health. The authors stated that robust evaluations should be built into future social prescribing programmes for migrants, with better data collection on participant demographics, measurement of outcomes and evaluation of whether migrants’ needs are better addressed through a single-function link worker role or transdisciplinary support roles.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of culture, language, gender and social capital (migrants).
This summary was prepared by Tuba Yavuz, edited by Sydney Johnson and finalized by Lucy Turner.
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