Introduction
Nearly 80 million people have been forcefully displaced worldwide, comprising 27 million migrants and roughly 3.99 million asylum seekers. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 15% of the population were born outside Australia (Fauk et al,2021). According to the research, women of migrant and refugee origin had worse health outcomes than women of Australian birth, the gap between the males and females is also prepared to include mental health. Individual and community mental health advancement and protection are a growing topic of public health planning and policy attention in Australia and worldwide (Sullivan, Vaughan & Wright,2020). Australian migrants and refugees are in jeopardy of being excluded or acclimatised by the strategy of mental health and management.
Most Australian research on migrant and refugee mental health is conducted via a psychopathology lens, which examines mental health symptoms and diagnosis problems (Fauk et al,2021). Some studies use terms like thriving, wellness, and post-traumatic development to look at mental health outside of diagnostic psychiatric illnesses (Cooper et al,2019). Reconceptualising mental health to incorporate health concepts like these may help the experience of migrant and refugee mental health concerns and reject oversimplified victim narratives. An anthropological investigation of the lives of single immigrant mothers in Brisbane discovered that resilience is not a fixed personality trait (Sullivan, Vaughan & Wright,2020). Resilience is instead continually produced by women via a series of ordinary, prosaic and relational activities that take place over time and are impacted by environmental contexts (Morgan, Wright & Reavley,2021).
Other research has looked at the looking at various mental health explanatory models, we may learn more about the mental health situations of migrants and refugees irrespective of psychopathological frameworks. Such a study emphasises the necessity of respecting migrants' and refugees' mental health constructs and methods and the various circumstances that influence them (Fauk et al,2021). Several research studies have looked at the multiple meanings and experiences of depression among migrants and refugees. The researcher observed that most participants in research with Vietnamese community members in Sydney did not draw clear boundaries between stress, anxiety and depression (Cooper et al,2019). The authors also found that participants exhibited a negative cultural attitude toward those suffering from mental illnesses and unfavourable connections with the mental health system in general.
Other studies have shown a link between immigrating and the effects of moving from a non-English language to an English-speaking country on mental health (Sullivan, Vaughan & Wright,2020). The researcher used data from Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) to undertake 10-year longitudinal research that looked at the relationship In Australia, there is a connection between immigration and health, particularly depression and anxiety (Sullivan, Vaughan & Wright,2020). The authors observed that migrants and refugees originating in English-speaking nations tended to have higher mental health than persons born in Australia. In comparison, migrants and refugees from non-English-speaking nations reported worse health. This was true on a broad scale, including mental health. Evidence suggests that migrant and refugee groups cannot get mental health care (Hamrah et al,2021). The current data reveal that migrant and refugee populations encounter several hurdles to receiving mental health care, making it difficult to obtain and interact with services. At the policy level, one such obstacle exists. In Australian policy discourse, there is a tendency to characterise migrant and refugee groups as homogeneous groups, ironically under the umbrella of Culturally And Linguistically Diverse (CALD) (Sullivan, Vaughan & Wright,2020). Policymaking methods that homogenise populations fail to consider the diverse requirements of people and communities within so-called CALD demographics. The way governments and officials are held responsible for their promises to migrant and refugee communities in mental health programmes has also been noted as a source of concern (Sullivan, Vaughan & Wright,2020). Although government mental health policies and programmes aim to fulfil the needs of CALD populations.
Conclusion
Population-wide surveys in Australia are used to establish government policies and financing choices. The findings have ramifications for fair and ethical funding of mental health promotion and responses to mental illness (Fauk et al,2021). The Australian Bureau of Statistics intended to undertake in 2020, the Intergenerational Health and Mental Health Study, the most comprehensive mental health study since 2007, will be launched. National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing (NSMHW) (Sullivan, Vaughan & Wright,2020). Although the procedures in place to guarantee that the data obtained from the migrant and refugee groups are representative is not known, this raises concerns (Cooper et al,2019).
Reference
Sullivan, C., Vaughan, C., & Wright, J. (2020). Migrant and refugee women’s mental health in Australia: a literature review. School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne: Melbourne, Australia. https://www.mcwh.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Lit-review_mental-health.pdf
Fauk, N. K., Ziersch, A., Gesesew, H., Ward, P., Green, E., Oudih, E., ... & Mwanri, L. (2021). Migrants and Service Providers’ Perspectives of Barriers to Accessing Mental Health Services in South Australia: A Case of African Migrants with a Refugee Background in South Australia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(17), 8906. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18178906
Cooper, S., Enticott, J.C., Shawyer, F. and Meadows, G., 2019. Determinants of mental illness among humanitarian migrants: longitudinal analysis of findings from the first three waves of a large cohort study. Frontiers in Psychiatry, p.545. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00545
Morgan, A. J., Wright, J., & Reavley, N. J. (2021). Review of Australian initiatives to reduce stigma towards people with complex mental illness: what exists and what works?. International journal of mental health systems, 15(1), 1-51. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-020-00423-1
Hamrah, M. S., Hoang, H., Mond, J., Pahlavanzade, B., Charkazi, A., & Auckland, S. (2021). Occurrence and correlates of depressive symptoms among the resettled Afghan refugees in a regional area of Australia. Early intervention in psychiatry, 15(3), 463-470. https://doi.org/10.1111/eip.12957
