Health and Migration
About the Course
Human migration is increasing and becoming more complex globally, with diverse populations involved in different types and phases of migration. These include refugees, asylum-seekers, trafficked and smuggled persons, internally-displaced persons (IDPs), as well as other people involved in irregular migration patterns. The origins and migration trajectories for most of these migrants have resulted in larger numbers of them residing in countries within the Global South, while others have come to reside in the Global North. Increasingly, human health is understood to be heavily influenced by distal socio-economic, environmental, political and technological determinants. These distal determinants, in turn, also influence the more proximal determinants of health such as access to care, health-seeking behavior, health care utilization and others. The diverse situations in which migrants find themselves are part of the distal determinants and can strongly influence the proximal ones. Examples of such influences include diminished access to legal rights, social services, housing, income and economic opportunities, as well as more obvious factors such as persecution of and violence against migrants.
It is important to understand how the health of migrants is influenced by all these intersectional factors, as well as to appreciate how these influences change depending on numerous other elements such as the migrants’ origin and phase along their migration trajectory, as well as the health situation in the host communities amongst which they reside. An important part of that learning process is to establish a conceptual framework that helps analyze health along both the migration trajectory as well as along the disease and health care continuum from surveillance, prevention, treatment, care and rehabilitation. Drawing upon existing evidence and literature as well as real-life case studies, this short course aims to equip participants with analytical tools that better prepare them in navigating policy, practice or research that effectively addresses the health and migration nexus.
Duration
June 29 – July 3, 2025
About the Instructor
Dr. Akram Ali Eltoum Mohamed earned an MBBS (Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, Sudan in 1985), an MPH (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, United States in 1993) and a Fellowship by Distinction (Faculty of Public Health, UK Royal College of Physicians in 2015), along with post-graduate training in Advanced Epidemiological Analysis, Leadership, Global Health Diplomacy, Project Development, Child and Adolescent Health, Rural Health Services Management, HIV and Advocacy. His profile brings over 35 years of experience in global health leadership, policy influence, operational research, strategic analysis, partnerships as well as program development and management; focused on health sector resilience, epidemic/pandemic risk management, humanitarian response, migration health, health systems strengthening, communicable and non-communicable disease control (including nutrition), primary health care (PHC) as well as sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH).
He worked in various global, regional and country-level senior management and advisory roles across industrialized, middle-income, lower-income and fragile states in WHO’s EMRO, EURO, AFRO, SEARO and WPRO regions. After several senior roles including as Global Fund’s director of partnerships and WHO representative in Jordan, he served as WHO EMRO’s senior regional consultant for HIV, hepatitis and sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs) when he also represented EMRO in WHO’s Global Validation Advisory Committee for elimination of maternal-to-child transmission of HIV, hepatitis and congenital syphilis (GVAC) and in Egypt’s National Hepatitis Technical Advisory Group (TAG). As Sudan’s former federal minister of health, he was elected an Africa CDC board member, WHO WHA vice-chair and executive board member. Since August 2022, he was appointed as an expert member in the two global WHO IHR review committees for COVID-19 and Mpox, WHO’s TAG for Validation of WHO Health Worker Training Course on Refugees and Migrants, WHO’s TAG on Health, Migration and Displacement, as well as in Gavi’s Independent Review Committee.