Research on migration and health in Chile: pushing forward

Resumen

To the Editor: Migration is defined as the process of moving from one place to another(1). It has a rather obvious beginning, but the ending is not necessarily clear(2). The United Nations defines an international migrant as a person who stays outside their usual country of residence for at least one year(3). Attempts to define migration have been complex and diverse, involving a wide range of contexts, reasons and types of immigrant, from healthy migrants in search of better opportunities, to political refugees escaping civil wars in their countries of origin. Migration affects the entire world and represents one of the major opportunities for economic, social and cultural integration, and is also a crucial social determinant of health. As Wickramage and Siriwardhana recently stated(4),this phenomenon is rapidly reshaping the world. For instance, labour migrants are increasingly flowing among low-income and middle-income nations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East(4). The same pattern is found in Latin American countries, where intra-regional migration has deepened socioeconomic inequality over the last decades(5). Leer más...