Migration and Refugee Health: Maintaining Healthcare

The Pulitzer Center co-hosts a workshop with Bielefeld University at the 7th World Health Summit on Sunday, October 11. Grantee Samuel Lowenberg is one of four presenters at the workshop on "Migration and Refugee Health: Maintaining Healthcare."

In describing the reasoning behind the workshop, the World Health Summit explained in its online program:
"The current migration wave to Western Europe is unmatched in the history of the continent, sign and symptom of the recent globalization process and the increasing political unrest in different parts of the world. This migration is massive, unprecedented, extremely diverse and mostly unregulated. In Germany, the number of asylum seekers increased from 30,100 persons in the year 2006 to 202,834 persons in 2014 and is expected to grow up to 1 million in 2015. In the future migration into Europe will become a routine for which Germany and other European countries ought to be prepared. There are multiple driving forces like civil wars and political instability as well as environmental degradation due to extreme weather events and climate change in countries of origin. On the other hand these forces include better life and economic prospects for migrants and their families in countries of destination. Established migration concepts like pull and push factors and the so-called healthy migrant effect are not sufficient to explain and understand the impacts on health and society of this global phenomenon. New concepts are needed to adapt health policy strategies that take into account the social transformation processes in sending and receiving regions. These policies need to respect various domains, internal as well as external policies, in order to refer to the concept of "health in all policies". In the workshop renowned experts in migrant and refugee health and international journalists will present their views of this currently most burning problem in Europe."

Chairs of the workshop are Zulfikar G. Abbany, science editor at Deutsche Welle in Germany; Dr. Alexander Krämer, professor and chair at Bielefeld University in Germany; and
Dr. Charles Yankah, president of the African Cultural Institute e. V. (ACI) in Germany.

Speakers, their affiliations and topics they will focus on at the workshop are:
Dr. Philipa Mladovsky, professor of international development at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) in the United Kingdom, focuses on
migration and health in Europe and challenges for health systems and policy.

Christian Haggenmiller, co-founder of Linkglobalhealth.org, focuses on refugee health challenges and opportunities.

Samuel Loewenberg, Pulitzer Center grantee journalist, discussing his reporting on the refugee health crisis.

Roumyana Petrova-Benedict, senior regional migration health manager for Europe and Central Asia at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Belgium, presents an overview of migration health in Europe.

"Migration and Refugee Health: Maintaining Healthcare"
Sunday, October 11
1:00 - 2:30 PM
Workshop Room 2
World Health Summit
Federal Foreign Office
Unterwasserstraße 10
10117 Berlin