The challenges of providing primary health care to Afghan immigrants in Tehran: a key global human right issue

Takbiri, Afsaneh; Takian, Amirhossein; Foroushani, Abbas Rahimi; Jaafaripooyan, Ebrahim

doi:10.1108/ijhrh-06-2019-0042

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…14 In addition, at least 620 000 Afghans who hold Afghan passports and Iranian visas also live in Iran. 15 Most refugees reside in urban settings, with only less than 3% living in 20 settlements by the UNHCR , enjoying comprehensive regularization plan. 16,17 Further, about 32 000 Iraqi nationals live as refugee in Iran.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refugees and Sustainable Health Development in Iran

et al. 2021

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Background: Refugees’ access to quality healthcare services might be compromised, which can in turn hinder universal health coverage (UHC), and achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), ultimately. Objective: This article aims to illustrate the status of refugees’ access to healthcare and main initiatives to improve their health status in Iran. Methods: This is a mixed-method study with two consecutive phases: qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative phase, through a review of documents and semi-structured interviews with 40 purposively-selected healthcare providers, the right of refugees to access healthcare services in the Iranian health system was examined. In the quantitative phase, data on refugees’ insurance coverage and their utilization from community-based rehabilitation (CBR) projects were collected and analyzed. Results: There are international and upstream policies, laws and practical projects that support refugees’ health in Iran. Refugees and immigrants have free access to most healthcare services provided in the PHC network in Iran. They can also access curative and rehabilitation services, the costs of which depend on their health insurance status. In 2015, the government allowed the inclusion of all registered refugees in the Universal Public Health Insurance (UPHI) scheme. Moreover, the mean number of disabled refugees using CBR services was 786 (±389.7). The mean number of refugees covered by the UPHI scheme was 112,000 (±30404.9). Conclusion: The United Nations’ SDGs ask to strive for peace and reducing inequity. Along its pathway towards UHC, despite limited resources received from the international society, the government of Iran has taken some fundamental steps to serve refugees similar to citizens of Iran. Although the initiative looks promising, more is still required to bring NGOs on board and fulfill the vision of leaving no one behind.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refugees and Sustainable Health Development in Iran

et al. 2021

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“…Studies in this area, like the mental health studies, were rare (eight studies) with a sample range of 14 to 316 Afghans [ 63 – 70 ]. According to an ethnographic study, healthcare management for female Afghan refugees carried several obstacles many of which referred the traditions, patriarchy and culture [ 65 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Afghan refugees had several challenges in every stage of PHC delivery including high service cost and lack of insurance coverage, language barriers, healthcare provider's behavior, delay in getting service in PHC centers [ 63 , 64 ]. In addition, documented Afghan families who were served by local health clinics usually did not have medical records in these clinics caused by continuing migration behavior due to job-seeking purposes or illegal status.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health condition of Afghan refugees residing in Iran in comparison to Germany: a systematic review of empirical studies

Rahimitabar

Kraemer

Bozorgmehr

et al. 2023

Int J Equity Health

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Background The re-emerging dominance of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2021 caused a new wave of Afghan refugees heading Iran and neighboring countries. Iran in the Middle East and Germany in Europe are two major host countries to the largest populations of Afghan refugees. In both countries, several studies have been done to assess the health condition of refugees. Objectives To systematically review the existing literature to identify similarities and differences of health conditions of Afghan refugees living in the two countries, and to synthesize evidence on the health status and health care access of these populations. Methods Related electronic databases and grey literature of Iran and Germany on the health of Afghan refugees were scanned and searched up for the period 2000–2020. Key terms were formed by combining “Afghan refugees or immigrants or populations or asylum seekers”, “Physical or mental health”, “Healthcare service or access or use”, “Iran or Germany”. Empirical studies were considered if they contained samples of Afghan refugees with particular outcomes for Afghans. Results were categorized for both countries in the three main areas of physical health, mental health, and access/use of healthcare services. Results Nine hundred twenty-two documents were extracted, of which 75 full-texts were finally reviewed. 60 documents belonged to the health condition of Afghan refugees residing in Iran including 43 in physical health, 6 in mental health, 8 in healthcare access and use, and 3 in multiple aspects of health, and 15 belonged to Germany including 7 in physical health, 4 in mental health, 2 in healthcare access and use, and 2 in multiple aspects of health. A less explicit evaluation of the overall health condition of Afghan refugees was observable, particularly for Germany. While matches on the study subject exist for both countries, in comparison to Germany, we extracted more quantitative and qualitative health studies on Afghan refugees of the mentioned areas from Iran. German health studies were rare, less qualitative, and more on the health condition of diverse refugee groups in general. Conclusions Wide gaps and unanswered questions related to mental health and overall health status of the Afghan refugee population are observable, especially in Germany. Our systematic review identified the gap in evidence, which we would recommend to bridge using a wider lens to comprehensively assess the overall condition of refugees considering associations between health and socio-economic and cultural determinants instead of a one-dimensional approach. Further, within health studies on refugee populations, we recommend stratification of results by the country of origin to capture the within-group diversity among refugees with different countries of origin.

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“…UNHCR covered the costs of insurance premiums for about 100,000 vulnerable refugees enrolled in Iran’s UPHI in 2020 and is seeking to expand this further in the face of the added challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 93 ]. The undocumented Afghan migrants in Iran have much more limited access to health care than registered refugees, as they are not covered by the public health insurance and face much higher charges, as well as sometimes experiencing discrimination when seeking treatment [ 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19: Marking the Gaps in Migrant and Refugee Health in Some Massive Migration Areas

Matlin

Çaman

Brando

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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The health of migrants and refugees, which has long been a cause for concern, has come under greatly increased pressure in the last decade. Against a background where the world has witnessed the largest numbers of migrants in history, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched the capacities of countries and of aid, health and relief organizations, from global to local levels, to meet the human rights and pressing needs of migrants and refugees for access to health care and to public health measures needed to protect them from the pandemic. The overview in this article of the situation in examples of middle-income countries that have hosted mass migration in recent years has drawn on information from summaries presented in an M8 Alliance Expert Meeting, from peer-reviewed literature and from reports from international agencies concerned with the status and health of migrants and refugees. The multi-factor approach developed here draws on perspectives from structural factors (including rights, governance, policies and practices), health determinants (including economic, environmental, social and political, as well as migration itself as a determinant) and the human security framework (defined as “freedom from want and fear and freedom to live in dignity” and incorporating the interactive dimensions of health, food, environmental, economic, personal, community and political security). These integrate as a multi-component ‘ecological perspective’ to examine the legal status, health rights and access to health care and other services of migrants and refugees, to mark gap areas and to consider the implications for improving health security both for them and for the communities in countries in which they reside or through which they transit.

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The challenges of providing primary health care to Afghan immigrants in Tehran: a key global human right issue

Cited by 9 publications

References 30 publications

Refugees and Sustainable Health Development in Iran

Refugees and Sustainable Health Development in Iran

Health condition of Afghan refugees residing in Iran in comparison to Germany: a systematic review of empirical studies

COVID-19: Marking the Gaps in Migrant and Refugee Health in Some Massive Migration Areas

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