Building for the future of immigrant/refugee-centered health care

A training initiative is helping build Brazil’s capacity to provide culturally sensitive, trauma-informed healthcare for its rapidly growing population of immigrants, refugees and stateless individuals.

The world is currently experiencing the largest displacement of people since World War Two— now even into countries not traditionally viewed as host destinations. This mass movement is creating unexpected challenges to host societies.

One of the most urgent needs is providing healthcare that’s sensitive to the unique challenges of displaced individuals — many of whom flee their homes for political or humanitarian reasons. Lack of understanding of the multidimensional aspects of immigrant/refugee health and settlement is a significant roadblock to progress — often leaving these individuals without access to proper care, follow-up or assistance with their needs.

To help fill the professional training gap and refine nursing practice in this area, TMU nursing professors Drs. Margareth Zanchetta and Kateryna Metersky collaborated with Academics Without Borders, the University of Brasilia and the Federal University of Pernambuco to launch a capacity-building project this past summer in Brazil — a country that currently hosts over 790,000 forcibly displaced people. Notably, the initiative supports a movement led by Brazil’s Ministry of Justice to create a national health policy for immigrants, refugees and stateless individuals.

Drs. Zanchetta and Metersky designed a professional development course for use by those who deliver services in the world’s largest government-run public health care system, the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).

The course illuminated collaborative interprofessional practice and person-centered care in Canada, but also how Canada implements policies reflecting a humanitarian approach, diversity, belonging, social inclusiveness, and community capacity building. Canada was presented as an example that provides ideas on how Brazil, too, can work in these areas.

The topic attracted an interprofessional audience — including frontline nurses, nurse managers, educators and graduate students, social workers, physicians, lawyers, dentists and nutritionists.

After being delivered in the cities of Brasilia and Recife, the course will be soon posted on a UnB platform for wider access to other interested parties. There’s also interest in broadening the course for use in medical schools and in all health and social services disciplines.

The project also opened up many potential opportunities for research, outreach and impact. Most notably, the project led to the submission of two grant proposals centered on the health issues of immigrants and refugees. The first is to organize a national scientific event in São Paulo in 2025 to stimulate international dialogue on the subject. The second is to conduct international evaluation research and expand technical visits to TMU by faculty and students from UnB and UFPE.

Dr. Metersky has also been conducting related, emerging research on the concept of transnational healthcare — in which immigrants and refugees travel back or connect virtually with their home country’s healthcare systems to overcome healthcare barriers encountered in their host country.

After the Brazil project’s initial deployment, Dr. Metersky reflected on how it achieved not only the expected outcomes but also continues to drive tremendous impact: “Taking my research and translating it to be applicable in other geographical contexts, and then seeing how just one project can produce such extensive outputs was remarkable.”

Dr. Zanchetta, herself a member of the Brazilian diaspora, concludes: “As Canadian educators and global citizens, we can share knowledge, bring hope to people in our home countries, and showcase how dreams can become reality through mutual learning.”