Health issues of asylum seekers and refugees

This paper is written on behalf of the West Australian Branch of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine. As public health physicians, we feel it is important that public health professionals should contribute constructively to address the needs of a socially deprived, marginalised group with high rates of physical and psychiatric morbidity. Depending on the definition, there are between 18 and 48 million asylum seekers and refugees in the world. Most seek protection in neighbouring countries, largely in Africa and Asia, rather than coming to North America, Europe and Australasia. Contrary to popular belief, numbers of successful applications to Australia's humanitarian program have actually fallen. This article attempts to correct misperceptions and misapprehensions about the effect of asylum seekers on the public health. Public health professionals should lobby for changes to Govemment policy that at present leave asylum seekers vulnerable to a cycle of poverty, ill-health and limited access to health services.