Impact of Migration on Mental Health in Australia

Introduction
• Annually Australia hosts over14000 aliens who comprise of refugees and immigrants. Several
studies show that foreign-born population has poorer general and mental health compared to the
Australian-born population. Upon settling in a new culture, aliens’ mental well-being is indicated by
the will and ability to master the new environment.

Introduction
• New settlers are required to learn and adapt to the foreign
culture of the hosts. Some of the major stumbling blocks that
foreigners are necessitated to overcome include the language
barriers and new cultural norms and values which can often lead
to isolation.
• In this presentation we seek to highlight the impacts migration to a new cultural
environment in Australia has on the mental health.

What happens?
• Migration often involves some individual sets of transition changes such as cutting personal
ties and building new social networks, changing socio-economic systems, and of course the
cultural system change.
• The major cause of mental health issues for immigrant is the language barrier. Imagine a
situation where doing some basic routines such as shopping and visiting social events
becomes complicated all over a sudden. It is frustrating, right?

What happens....?
• Dr. Bhugra demonstrates that the failure to communicate effectively with people around
you can lead to intense feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness. Such scenarios escalate
depression and other mental problems.
• In a study focusing on the mental health of refugee fathers it was shown that fathers that
experienced language barrier were at a higher probability of exhibiting psychological
distress than those from English-speaking nations.
• Overall, there was a higher percentage prevalence of psychological distress among the alien
fathers than the Australian-born fathers (Giallo et al. 2017).