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Manila – IOM, the Migration & Health South Asia network and the Migration Health and Development Research Initiative (MHADRI) – a global network of researchers aimed to advance evidence-informed global migration health policies and practices, jointly organized a workshop on
undertaking bibliometric analysis of migration health research. Participants ranged from government, academia, clinical practice and research institutions, mainly from South and Southeast Asia.
“Bibliometric analysis is a useful research method as it lets you look at the patterns of research activities such a publication. In any global health field, it is extremely helpful to know where the work is being done, who is doing it, where the collaborations are happening, and what topics are being explored,” said Dr. Margaret Sampson, an international expert on bibliometric analysis who facilitated the workshop. Bibliometrics is an important first step in undertaking systematic review as it reveals patterns in publications in terms of authorship, geographical distribution, international research collaboration, and important themes discussed in the realm of migration and health.
The workshop also served as a venue among migration health actors and scholars to explore research questions on the research productivity relating to migration and health at the global, regional, sub-regional, and national levels as well as the research productivity relating to migration and health, focusing on specific themes such as migrant type, health outcomes (e.g., infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, nutrition, mental health), among others.
Queen Mary University and the British Council, UK provided funding support to leading migration health scholars from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh as part of the Migration & Health South Asia network.
Expounding on the value of bibliometric research methods to map landscape of migration health research productivity, Associate Professor Charles Hui, Chairperson of MHADRI network and Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, said that, “the workshop provided an excellent opportunity to build research capacity among Global South scholars, to enable them to go back and take deep dives to understand the research productivity in the field of migration health in their local areas and use that as evidence to move the field forward.”
The workshop was the first ever of this kind and IOM working with partner organizations and research networks seeks to facilitate these in other regions. In 2018, IOM and MHADRI network undertook a bibliometric analysis of global migration health research in peer-reviewed literature. The data showed major gaps in the research productivity especially in the ‘global south’. To read the full paper: Bibliometric analysis of global migration health research in peer-reviewed literature (2000–2016)