Unsafe, unsupported, unseen: The hidden mental health costs of poor housing for people seeking asylum

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Housing matters for everyone’s mental health, but for people seeking asylum, the stakes are even higher. This new systematic review explores how poor housing conditions exacerbate mental distress and what must change.

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Starting over: Post-migration challenges experienced by refugees when integrating in a new country

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Many displaced people reach safety only to find new challenges waiting. This new qualitative systematic review synthesises the experiences of 490 refugees, revealing the mental, social, and structural barriers they face in trying to integrate.

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“How do I see a doctor?” Implementing the Refugee Health Screener-13 in Sweden

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KCL MSc student Rachel Rowan Olive considers the best ways to screen for mental health problems in refugees, exploring a recent Swedish paper evaluating the Refugee Health Screener-13 tool.

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Exploring the impact of hostile environment policies on psychological distress of ethnic minority groups in the UK

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UCL MSc students consider research showing that the highest impact of hostile environment policies was noticed among Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups. This evidence suggests that interdisciplinary collaboration is needed to prevent psychological distress.

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How has the hostile environment policy worsened the mental health of people from minoritised ethnic groups?

LONDON, UK -20 MAY 2017- Sign for the UK Border at London Heathrow International Airport (LHR).  The UK and European Union  countries have separate passport control and immigration lanes.

Briony Tatem considers a study in The Lancet, which explores the effect of immigration policy reform on mental health in people from minoritised ethnic groups in England, using longitudinal data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study cohort.

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Trauma affects how refugees feel about themselves and others, but how can clinicians help?

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UCL MSc students consider a longitudinal study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, which explores the underlying cognitive mechanisms that could explain the association between trauma exposure, mental health and social engagement in refugees.

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Unjust: how inequality and mental health intertwine

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Andy Bell reflects on a recent peer research study and shares the steps that any mental health service can take to help people reclaim their rights, their personhood, and their equal citizenship.

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Self Help Plus for refugees: we need effective, low-intensity and scalable interventions

Asylum seekers and refugees in the UK increasingly face challenges impacting on their experiences of resettlement.

Alexis Low considers a meta-analysis which evaluates Self-Help Plus, a promising WHO intervention that could be scaled up to address the mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers.

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Culturally responsive practices for supporting refugee adolescents’ acculturation through schools

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Sadhbh Byrne reviews a qualitative study exploring the role of culturally responsive social and emotional learning in supporting the inclusion and belonging of refugee children and young people.

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The links between social deprivation and mental health problems in immigrants and non-immigrants

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Rudo Dube writes about an Australian study of socially fragmented neighbourhoods and psychological distress among immigrants and non-immigrants in Australia.

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