Charlie Yves Ngoudji Tameko, PhD

Junior Fellow in the cluster Migration, borders and mobility in, around and through Europe

THE STATE OF ART ON MIGRATION AND HEALTH: THE UNELUCIDATED ROLE OF HEALTH IN SHAPING MIGRATION DECISIONS

Responding to global calls for comprehensive research on health and migration articulated during the 2nd Global Consultation on Migration and Health, our study provides a critical overview of the state of the art regarding migration and health with the aim of deepening the understanding of their bidirectional relationship. We highlight the overlooked reverse relationship between migration and health and discuss the largely unelucidated role of health in shaping migration decisions, with a focus on undocumented mobility. We expand the analytical focus beyond the individual, exploring how collective health concerns shape migration decisions and offering a novel perspective that situates health not only as an outcome but as a driver of mobility. Our approach emphasizes the importance of how familial and community health burdens can generate both motivation and necessity for migration, especially in low-resource contexts in which illness, disability, and chronic conditions within households are frequently linked to poverty traps and intergenerational inequalities.