The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) launched a study focused on collecting, analyzing, and systematizing information on policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks on health and migration with a human rights-based approach at the national and international levels, starting with 19 countries in the Region of the Americas. The research was conducted in collaboration with a research team at the School of Law of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina.

The dashboard is an interactive digital repository that facilitates the dissemination and dynamic visualization of research findings. It offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of the international legislative framework on health and migration and national trends at the constitutional, legislative, and planning levels. It is a resource to guide decision-makers and actors from different sectors in the Americas in developing, updating, and improving policies, laws, plans, and programs that include migrants in a comprehensive manner, from a human rights perspective. It highlights key instruments that countries have developed and focuses on promoting the protection of fundamental freedoms and human rights, such as the right to health.

The dashboard includes national plans, strategies, and policies; international treaties; recommendations, comments, and reports from conventional and non-conventional mechanisms for compliance with the United Nations and the Inter-American Human Rights System treaties; jurisprudence; national laws, decrees, and regulations on the subject; and other documentation related to the protection of human rights and the explicit legal recognition of the right to health.

The research highlights key points related to trends found in the Americas on policy, legal, and regulatory frameworks on health and migration, and how well they abide by universal and regional human rights standards.

 In line with commitment to solidarity and protection of the right to health, several countries in the Region have made headway on specific plans, strategies, and policies on health and migration, including interventions that address the specific needs of this population and promote their physical and mental well-being. Likewise, there are national legal frameworks on migration that incorporate important elements on the health of this population, together with health planning instruments that integrate key contextual aspects of migration in the country, as well as the health needs of this population and actions to address them from the health sector and in collaboration with other institutions.

 Despite efforts to remove barriers to universal access to health services for migrants, legislative and regulatory frameworks sometimes contain obstacles that can affect access. For example, immigration status can be a determinant of whether or not a person has access to the health system since, in many countries, a national identification document must be presented to access primary, secondary, or tertiary health services.

 Language and cultural differences are a major barrier to accessing health services for the migrant population. This also hinders medical due process and, above all, health promotion (as well as screenings and treatments, provision of informed consent when required, and data for statistics). For a number of reasons, the migrant population often finds it difficult to access information on the legislative and legal frameworks of the justice system and migration policy, their rights and obligations, and the steps for accessing the health system in the country of destination or transit, which could constitute a human rights violation.

 In addition, some migrants do not seek care or do not visit a health center for fear of being discriminated against or stigmatized. Likewise, a high proportion of people with informal jobs or an irregular status do not have health coverage or other social security benefits, further discouraging them from turning to the health system for prevention services, risk monitoring, or medical care.

Given the current challenges, it is important to provide health workers with continuous training and raise their awareness of the specific needs of migrants, in particular their rights and the cultural differences with the destination country. It is also important to promote information campaigns with a person-centered approach and the involvement of various branches of government, within legal and regulatory frameworks that grant explicit rights and recognize the duties of the State in compliance with the human right to health.

To continue addressing these and other barriers and to make progress in terms of the inclusion and comprehensive protection of this population in the formulation of all policies, laws, and programs, it is essential to have the active participation of various sectors and interest groups such as civil society, academia, the media, international organizations, community leaders, and coordination mechanisms and networks.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) launched a study focused on collecting, analyzing, and systematizing a review of scientific literature on health and migration at the national and international levels from the countries of the Region of the Americas. This was done in collaboration with a research team from the Social Studies in Health Program of the Institute of Sciences and Innovation in Medicine (ICIM) at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Chile.

The interactive dashboard maps scientific articles on health and migration in countries of the Region of the Americas at the national and international levels. It shows the current state of scientific literature on the health of migrants, refugees, and persons on the move in the Americas.

The dashboard is a tool to guide academics, health workers, decision-makers, and actors from different sectors in the Americas in formulating plans and programs that include the health of the migrant population in a comprehensive manner. It highlights key evidence supporting these processes, including fundamental areas of health systems, health outcomes, and social determinants of health.

The dashboard was developed based on a narrative literature review of texts indexed in the Web of Science and PubMed databases. This information was supplemented through keyword searches in Google Scholar of texts not indexed in these databases.

The dashboard simultaneously shows: (1) descriptive results of the studies identified in this review of scientific literature; (2) lead and corresponding authors of those works; and (3) institutions linked to the authors of the studies in the review.

The information on the dashboard can be consulted by topic (health systems, health outcomes, and social determinants of health of migrants in the Americas) and sub-topic associated with each of these general topics, type of study, study objective, and country where the study was conducted, among others. Summary sheets included in the dashboard contain the main findings under the various health topics.