Health of South Asian migrants and refugees in Australia: an evidence gap map

The objective of this gap map is to provide an overview of existing evidence on the health of South Asian migrants and refugees in Australia and highlight research gaps.

We searched four databases until June 2025 to include quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies conducted in Australia and published from the year 2000 onwards on health of migrants and refugees from South Asian countries. Two reviewers screened titles/abstracts and full texts using Covidence to establish eligibility. The included studies were then coded in Evidence for Policy & Practice Information Centre - Reviewer (EPPI-Reviewer) to generate a gap map.

The evidence gap map summarises findings from 129 studies (66 qualitative, 52 quantitative and 11 mixed methods studies) reporting on the health and well-being of migrants from South Asian countries residing in Australia. The gap map depicts that mental health conditions, non-communicable diseases and maternal health are relatively well-evidenced domains compared with other health conditions. Knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours are the most frequently evaluated outcomes, followed by experiences with healthcare system, prevalence of health conditions and factors associated with healthcare access and utilisation. There are evident data gaps assessing survival/mortality, access and utilisation of health services and cost-effectiveness. There is sparse evidence on the effectiveness of interventions/strategies to improve health status, access and utilisation of health services and their impact on survival and mortality. Health literacy, language proficiency, competing priorities, negative beliefs, past experiences, confusion in navigating the healthcare system and cost of services were reported as barriers in accessing healthcare services.

These findings highlight the scarcity of evidence beyond the descriptive measures on health of South Asian migrants in Australia.

Priority areas for future research include generating data to establish causal relationships between population-specific risk factors and adverse health outcomes by establishing long-term cohorts. These data would assist in designing and evaluating context-specific interventions that are feasible and acceptable to improve health outcomes in this population.