The inclusion of migrants in health impact assessments: A scoping review

This article reports the findings of a scoping review assessing the extent and ways in which migrants have been included in health impact assessments (HIAs) and HIA evaluations worldwide. A total of 117 HIAs and two HIA evaluations were included. Only 14% of hand-searched HIAs mentioned migrants, 5% analysed migrants and only 2% included them in their recommendations. Nonetheless, migrants would be expected to be part of the analysis based on the reasons for which migrants were most commonly mentioned. Although the majority of HIAs included in the review mentioned migrants in baseline conditions and impact analysis steps, migrants were seldom included in recommendations. Furthermore, the use of frameworks or tools guiding the completion of an HIA was negatively associated with the inclusion of migrants in recommendations. This is a pivotal risk of frameworks not mentioning migrants. Although workshops and stakeholder engagement were a frequent way of including migrants in HIAs, this usually involved organizations representing migrants, and only seldom included members of the migrant community themselves. The main barriers to including migrants in the HIA impact analysis were the lack of available data on migrants and the significant additional resources required to gather and analyse additional data on migrants. Guidance is needed on ways to optimally include migrants in HIAs and ensure that recommendations for mitigation measures are optimal.