Communicable disease screening and prevalence among migrants

Migrants make up an estimated 28 percent of the Australian population. Understanding current migrant health status is necessary to inform health policy and planning, to ensure health equity for migrants and to improve health care within Australia. Up-to-date research on the health of newly-arrived migrants is particularly important given changing migrant source countries and demographics, and potential implications for changing patterns of disease.

Objective

The study aims to provide recommendations to inform evidence-based policy and practice to improve communicable diseases health outcomes among migrants entering Australia.

Timeline

June 2017–May 2018.

Approach

The study will utilise routinely-collected pre-migration health screening data collected by the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).

The study will determine screening rates for key communicable diseases (tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C), measure the prevalence of these diseases, and identify socio-demographic, migration and health-related factors associated with disease positivity.