WHO Global School on Refugee and Migrant Health

The migration experience can influence the health status of refugees and migrants and their needs, as it may involve poor transit conditions, restrictive entry and integration policies, exclusion, and acculturation stress.  

Addressing the needs of these populations with well-functioning health systems and public health services responds to their human right to health, protects the health of both migrants and host communities, and contributes to integration and social and economic development, as these populations contribute to the society they live in especially when in good health.

To help countries and territories build competency on public health aspects of migration and support the development and dissemination of knowledge and information concerning health and migration issues, the WHO Health and Migration Programme (PHM) organizes yearly the Global School on Refugee and Migrant Health, in collaboration with WHO Regional and Country offices. The Global School promotes evidence-informed and best practice interventions important to adapting health systems to the health needs and rights of refugees and migrants worldwide, and, by doing so, contributes to advancing the WHO Global Action Plan ‘Promoting the health of refugees and migrants 2019-2023’ that the PHM seeks to implement.

This year, the Global School on Refugee and Migrant Health will be held online from 25 to 29 October 2021 with the theme “Sharing country experiences on health and migration”. It will be an e-learning event, hosted by and web-streamed from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The event will feature high-level keynote speeches, keynote lectures from international experts, presentations of relevant research studies, interactive Q&A sessions, and live panel discussions, as well as a series of reportage from different settings presenting the state of the health challenges for refugees and migrants and the responses on the ground. The series of reportage - one of the peculiarities of this second edition of the Global School - will also present the stories of refugees and migrants, and of the front-line health workers who receive first-hand information regarding the main issues encountered in refugees and migrant health-care delivery.