Migrant Health in Big Cities: Can past health crises inform the future?
Recent studies, including a systematic review done by the Center for Immigrant, Refugee, and Global Health (CIRGH) in 2022, highlight the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 –and other public health crises– on migrant populations, particularly in large urban settings. This webinar brings together researchers from a variety of institutions to discuss what has been learned about migrant health policy in urban areas facing public health crises and how these lessons can inform future policy and action. Speakers highlight the impact of exclusion, promising strategies for integration and social connection, and the role of civil society in serving vulnerable migrant groups, among other themes.
The webinar is opened by Dr. Bernadette Kumar, President of the Global Society on Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Health, Co-Chair of the Lancet Migration, and Associate Professor for Global Health at the Institute for Health and Society at the University of Oslo. It is moderated by Dr. Kathleen Cravero, Distinguished Lecturer at the City University Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) and director of CUNY’s Center for Immigrant, Refugee and Global Health. Speakers include:
Dr. Nabeela Ahmed is a human geographer at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom. She works at the intersections of urban studies, governance and precarity in post-colonial contexts. Her research focuses on questions of precarity (in terms of gender and race as well as class), citizenship and state welfare in urban contexts. She is currently looking at how these questions evolve in the digital age, primarily in South Asia.
Erica Briozzo is a PhD candidate at the Applied Psychology Research Center Capabilities and Inclusion (APPsyCI) at the University of Ispa in Lisbon, Portugal. Her research focuses on the integration of refugees in Portugal and on migrant detention (in Italy and Portugal). She uses multi-qualitative, participatory methods in her PhD research to investigate experiences of people seeking sanctuary in Lisbon and of migrants in detention centers across Portugal.
Dr Marcia Vera-Espinoza is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Global Health and Development (IGHD), Queen Margaret University in the United Kingdom. Dr. Vera-Espinoza leads the Psychosocial Wellbeing, Integration and Protection Research Cluster at the IGHD. She is also a researcher at CAMINAR (Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas) and principal investigator of a project entitled 'New Scots Integration: A Pathway to Social and Economic Inclusion’. Her research interests include the study of migration and refugee dynamics, experiences of inclusion, and migration governance in Latin America, and beyond. She is also conducting research on the impacts of COVID-19 on migrant and refugee popuöations across seven countries in Latin America as part of the CAMINAR research group.
Dr. Marie Louise Nørredam is the director of the Danish Research Centre for Migration, Ethnicity, and Health and professor for Migration, Ethnicity, and Health at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. In addition, she works as an infectious disease specialist with the section for Immigrant Medicine at the University Hospital Hvidovre in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her main scientific interest lies within the field of health equity, migration, and access to health services among migrant populations, particularly on the impact of ethnicity and migration on health conditions and access to health care, vulnerable migrant groups, mental health, and chronic diseases.