African Child and Youth Well-being in the Context of Migration and Displacement

Funder: Worldwide Universities Research Network Research Development Fund

Our project investigates the health of African migrant and displaced children and youths, which is an understudied topic globally. Our team and project exemplify interdisciplinary collaboration, linking scholars from four continents: North America, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. This project comprises three activities:

• A comprehensive ‘scoping review’ of literature on the health of African migrant children and youth;
• A research team meeting and workshop in Alberta in June 2019 to brainstorm and discuss African child and youth health in the context of migration and displacement and to outline a draft proposal for a major funding body; and
• A webinar for graduate students on methodological issues related to research with African migrant children and youths, which was delivered in June 2019.

The questions guiding our project are:

• What is known from the existing international literature on the health of African migrant children and youths?
• How can future studies overcome research gaps and inform programs and policies that meet the health care needs of African children and youths in the context of migration and displacement?

Our Research Methods:

From January through May 2019, we conducted scoping reviews—a method often used to map out and identify the extent, range, and nature of research activity in a given area as well as to identify research gaps in the existing literature. Our five-month plan is guided by the methodology described by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). Our project produced six sub-reviews on the topic, including internally displaced African children, African refugee children who live outside of Africa, African refugee children who live inside Africa, African international migrant children, reproductive health of African migrant children, and nutritional status of African migrant children.

Outputs

We are currently in the process of publishing our results. Salami, B., Iwuagwu, S., Amodu, O., Tulli, M., Ndikom, C., Gommaa, H., … & Kariwo, M. (2020). The health of internally displaced children in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review. BMJ Global Health, 5(8), e002584.

Salami, B., Fernandez, H., Fouche, C., Evans, C., Sibeko, L., Tulli, M., Bulaong, A., Kwankye, S., Ani-Amponsah, M., Okeke-Ihejirika, P., Gommaa, H., Agbemenu, K., Ndikom, C., Richter, S. (2021). A Scoping Review of The Health of African Immigrant and Refugee Children. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,18(7):3514. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073514