Health of refugees settled in Australia over time and generations: a transformative mixed methods study protocol
Authors: Dawson Angela J , Heywood Anita E , Nathan Sally , Mahimbo Abela , Renzaho Andre MN , Murdolo Adele , Kang Melissa , Smith Mitchell , Hayen Andrew 
Published: September 2024

Background

Refugees resettled in Australia may experience significant physical, mental and emotional health issues on arrival and difficulty accessing mainstream healthcare that often demands specialised services. It is not known if and how refugee health needs and service use change over time and generations, how this compares with the broader Australian population and what level of resourcing is required to maintain specialised services. There is also a significant knowledge gap concerning the resources and skills of refugees that can be harnessed to sustain the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Such knowledge gaps impede the ability of the health system to deliver responsive, efficient, acceptable and cost-effective care and services and limit the engagement of refugees in the coproduction of these services.

Methods

This study will be the first to provide comprehensive, longitudinal, population-based evidence of refugee health, service use and the accumulated resources or assets related to positive health and well-being (compared with data on deficits, illness and death) across the lifespan and generations. This will enable a comprehensive understanding of the relationships among assets, health status, service gaps and behaviours. We will identify the assets contributing to increased capacities to protect and promote health. This evidence is essential for planning health prevention programmes.

This project has three phases: (1) employ national linked datasets to examine the health and social outcomes of refugees in Australia; (2) engage with refugees in a participatory manner to map the social, economic, organisational, physical and cultural assets in their communities and deliver an integrated model of health; and (3) codesign a roadmap of agreed actions required to attain health and well-being in communities and indicators to assess outcomes.

Ethics and dissemination

Ethics and procedures—phase I:

Ethical approval for phase I was gained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for Person Level Integrated Data Asset microdata (unit record data) via the ABS DataLab and the NSW Population and Health Services Research Ethics Committee (2023ETH01728), which can provide a single review of multijurisdictional data linkage research projects under the National Mutual Acceptance Scheme. This will facilitate approval for the Victorian and ACT datasets. The ABS will be the integrating/linkage authority. The Centre for Health Record Linkage (CHeReL) and the Victorian Data Linkage Unit will prepare a data extract representing all data records from the dataset to provide to the ABS for linkage.

Ethics and procedures—phases 2 and 3:

Written consent will be obtained from all participants, as well as consent to publish. We have obtained ethical approval from the University of Technology Sydney Medical Research Ethics Committee; however, as we deepen our consultation with community members and receive input from expert stakeholders, we will likely seek amendments to hone the survey and World Café questions. We will also need to provide flexible offerings that may extend to individual interviews and online interactions.

Discussion

This innovative approach will empower refugees and put them at the centre of their health and decision-making.