BACKGROUND Prevalence of diabetes mellitus is increasing in developed and developing countries. Diabetes is known to strongly affect the health-related quality of life (HRQOL). HRQOL is also influenced by living conditions. We analysed the effects of having diabetes on HRQOL under the living conditions in refugee camps in the Gaza strip. METHODS We studied a sample of 197 diabetic patients wh...

Little is known about HIV infection risks and risk behaviours of refugees living in resource-scarce post-emergency phase camps in Africa. Our study at Nyarugusu Camp in Tanzania, covering systematically selected refugees (n = 1140) and refugees living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) (n = 182), revealed that the level of HIV risk of systematically selected refugees increased after displacement, particular...

PROBLEM BEING ADDRESSED Canadian family physicians serve a patient population that is increasingly diverse, both culturally and linguistically. Family medicine needs to take a leadership role in developing social accountability and cultural sensitivity among physicians. OBJECTIVE OF PROGRAM To train medical students to work with newly arriving refugees, to foster competence in handling cultur...

Praveena Gunaratnam, Lidija Sestakova, Mitchell Smith and Siranda Torvaldsen NSW Public Health Officer Training Program, NSW Ministry of Health, 73 Miller Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia. School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Medicine, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. NSW Refugee Health Service, PO Box 144, Liverpool BC, NSW 1871, Australia. Corresponding author. Email: pgu...

BACKGROUND Numerous simultaneous complex humanitarian emergencies strain the ability of local governments and the international community to respond, underscoring the importance of cost-effective use of limited resources. At the end of 2011, 42.5 million people were forcibly displaced, including 10.4 million refugees under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)...

Refugees are among, if not, the most at risk population for undergoing health disparities for a variety of reasons, including their relocation, their poverty, as well as the actual demographics of refugees of which 80% are women and children. Thirty percent of the 9.2 million refugees and 25 million displaced persons in the world are found in SubSaharan Africa, however only 10% of literature on...

During the past ten years the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children has dramatically increased in Sweden. Some of them are permitted to stay in the receiving country, but some are forced back to their country of origin. Social workers and police officers are involved in these forced repatriations, and such complex situations may cause stressful working conditions. This study a...

Background: Questionnaires are widely used to assess the mental health status of refugees, whereas their construct validity largely remains unexplored. Objective: This study examined the construct validity of two widely-used instruments for the assessment of PTSD symptoms (Harvard Trauma Questionnaire [HTQ]; 16 items) and symptoms of anxiety and depression (Hopkins Symptom Check list-25 [HSCL-2...