Good health is critical at any age, and can have a lasting effect on the physical, emotional, and mental health of refugees and displaced persons.
The physical and mental health of refugees, including children and adolescents, is a multifaceted phenomenon that needs to be understood and addressed across multiple sectors that influence all potential determinants of health, including housing, education, economic opportunities, and the larger policy and political context including immigration.The pressures causing forced displacement show no signs of abating, with the global population of forcibly displaced people growing substantially over the past two decades from 34 million in 1997 to 66 million in 2016. Of those displaced, most remain either internally displaced in their countries of origin or stay in neighboring countries, often in temporary settlements and camps.
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees should have access to the same or similar healthcare as host populations.The multidimensional and collective character of challenges facing refugee children and families calls for comprehensive preventive and management interventions through which prevention and healing of the physical and psychological wounds of war is complemented by restoring and supporting the social and physical environment so that it is one in which refugees, children and their families, can thrive.To leave an environment of extreme insecurity and arrive in a different country of relative safety enhances mental health and wellbeing for many. However, the trauma of war can lead to disorders that have the potential of disrupting daily functioning and living. Depression, anxiety, or sleep disturbance, often in combination, are more common in refugee children than in the general population.
Mental health education, clean water education, personal hygiene, education on the prevention of early child pregnancy, HIV and other STDs, as well as communicable diseases remain an essential component of our preventive healthcare work with refugees and internally displaced people. Without safe water sources for drinking and cooking, refugees are exposed to diseases and infections, and pathogens can spread in households and communities.
