Migrant Health

The ISGlobal Migrant Health Research Group has a particular focus on designing, testing and evaluating public health and other health interventions aimed to improve the health of migrants at different levels of care (Primary care, antenatal care, blood banks, mental health care and psychosocial support…).

In this regard, our research has focused in the past 3 years on generating evidence about how to assess migrant health needs, and in particular, on developing innovative tools to improve migrant screening using electronic patient records (EPR) and precision medicine, which is aligned with the focus of Horizon EU Strategy 2021-24 on reducing inequities and providing high-quality of care, and on contributing to the digital transition with direct impact in health systems.

We designed and implemented the ISMiHealthtool, a clinical decision support system on multi-disease screening at Primary care. We have obtained additional funding to validate the tool in Catalonia and to scale-it up to the Andalusia’s health information system; our plan will be to scale-up the tool to other health information systems.

The INPREMI project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Health, developed and validated a multi-disease serological screening test based on Luminex technology that included infections common in migrant populations. Preliminary results are promising, and we are currently planning to evaluate the test in a prospective cohort of migrants.

We are also conducting several projects in Morocco related to migrant health, particularly the MHCP project funded by "la Caixa" that is developing and testing a digital tool to improve the data collection on migrants living in North Africa and Middle East while establishing an International PhD programme between UB and 3 universities in Morocco, Tunisia, and Sudan.

In addition, we are collaborating as a consultant for several international organizations to enhance the data collection and data analysis of health related conditions in migrants in North African countries, as well as to promote community-based mental health interventions and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in displacement and emergencies.

Since 2019, we have set a community-based participatory research project “Living Lab on Mental Health and Migration” with the view to understand the mental health needs of migrants in urban settings and propose strategies for improving access to mental health care and psychosocial support.

Lines of Research

• Access to migrant health data in transit and destination countries.
• Screening of infectious diseases and other conditions, including female genital mutilation and mental health, in migrant populations.
• Digital tools to improve the detection of migrant health related conditions using personalized medicine.
• Community-based interventions to address mental health and psychosocial needs in migrants.

Group projects

• Delivering an INNOvative multi-disease Screening and Vaccination TOOL to high-risk MIGrant populations (INNoMiGs).  Fondos de  Investigación en Salud (FIS).  Instituto de Salud Carlos III. State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2017-2020. 89,000€.  January 2022- December 2024.
• Transforming data collection and surveillance around vaccination (including COVID-19) and key diseases in migrants in the MENA Region (MHCP). La Caixa foundation. Mobility and Health call.  1,500,000€. August 2022 – July 2025.
• Barcelona CaixaResearch Living Lab. La Caixa foundation. 600, 000€ (300,000€ for ISGlobal). January 2020- December 2022. 
• Early detection of chronic infectious diseases in migrant populations. Fondos de Investigación en Salud (FIS).  Instituto de Salud Carlos III. State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2017-2020. 65,000€. January 2018 – December 2021.
• European Expert Network on rare communicable diseases and other rare diseases in the context of Mobility and Globalisation. European Commission (Service Contract Number: Chafea/2017/Health/07). 185,000€. September 2018 - August 2019.
• Mejora del Sistema de recogida de datos del programa de Salud de la IOM - NGO ASTICUDE- Nador. Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID, Spanish Cooperation and Development Agency).  100,000€.  September 2018 – November 2022.
• Screening of migrant populations through a software adapted to the clinical history at Primary care level (CRIBMI). Pla estratègic de recerca i innovació en salut (PERIS, Strategic Health Research and Innovation Plan of the Health Quality and Assessment Agency of Catalonia (AQuAS). 103,867€.  January 2017 - December 2019.

• Usefulness and practicality of a multidisease screening programme targeting migrant patients in primary care in Spain: a qualitative study of general practitioners. Gonçalves AQ, Sequeira-Aymar E, Aguilar Martín C, Dalmau RM, Cruz A, Evangelidou S, Hargreaves S, Requena-Mendez A, Jacques-Aviñó C. BMJ Open. 2022 Nov 16;12(11):e065645. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-065645.
• Estimating chagas disease prevalence and number of underdiagnosed, and undertreated individuals in Spain. Navarro M, Reguero L, Subirà C, Blázquez-Pérez A, Requena-Méndez A. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2022 May-Jun;47:102284. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2022.102284. Epub 2022 Mar 2.
• Improving the detection of infectious diseases in at-risk migrants with an innovative integrated multi-infection screening digital decision support tool (IS-MiHealth) in primary care: a pilot cluster-randomized-controlled trial. Sequeira-Aymar E, Cruz A, Serra-Burriel M, di Lollo X, Gonçalves AQ, Camps-Vilà L, Monclus-Gonzalez MM, Revuelta-Muñoz EM, Busquet-Solé N, Sarriegui-Domínguez S, Casellas A, Llorca MRD, Aguilar-Martín C, Jacques-Aviñó C, Hargreaves S, Requena-Mendez A; CRIBMI (IS-MiHealth) Working Group. J Travel Med. 2022 Nov 4;29(7):taab100. doi: 10.1093/jtm/taab100.
• Health and illness in migrants and refugees arriving in Europe: analysis of the electronic Personal Health Record system. Zenner D, Méndez AR, Schillinger S, Val E, Wickramage K. J Travel Med. 2022 Nov 4;29(7):taac035. doi: 10.1093/jtm/taac035.
• Understanding health inequities among transiting migrants within the Middle East and North African (MENA) region through strengthening data systems. Requena-Méndez A, Wickramage K, Ito C, Assarag B, Hilali M, Deal A, Arias S, Zenner D, Chemao-Elfihri W, Hargreaves S; Migrant Health MENA Working Group. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2021 Jul-Aug;42:102094. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2021.102094. Epub 2021 May 28.
• Cost-effectiveness of Chagas disease screening in Latin American migrants at primary health-care centres in Europe: a Markov model analysis. Requena-Méndez A, Bussion S, Aldasoro E, Jackson Y, Angheben A, Moore D, Pinazo MJ, Gascón J, Muñoz J, Sicuri E. Lancet Glob Health. 2017 Apr;5(4):e439-e447.]