My heart has no hurt: the health of young immigrants

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore health from the perspective of young immigrants in Sweden. Design/methodology/approach A total of 25 newly arrived young immigrants attending Swedish language classes in northern Sweden participated by drawing and writing open letters. They continued the open-ended sentence “Now I’ll draw and describe a day when I was feeling good, that was […].” Findings The phenomenological analysis resulted in three themes: longing to be in control for a better life, searching for power in the good and the bad, and striving for a sense of belonging in the new society. The findings illuminate young immigrants’ perspectives of a health-promoting everyday life consisting of agency, reflection and a sense of community. The findings also highlight the young immigrants’ experiences when health-promoting aspects are lacking, characterized by disillusionment, anxiety and loneliness. The findings are discussed with health promotion, health literacy and young immigrants in mind. Practical implications According to young immigrants, meeting basic needs such as food, sleep and housing is health promoting but easily taken for granted. Being able to have a say in matters concerning everyday life, social inclusion and finding power in memories – positive and negative – can promote health in young immigrants. Originality/value The young immigrants were able to communicate via drawings and words to overcome language barriers.

City-exit and Community-fit: Finding One’s ‘Place’ in Australia

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Health-related integration interventions for migrants by civil society organizations: an integrative review

“…Additionally, in line with the discussion above about agency and participatory processes (also found in Ferrera, 2017 study on integrating positive minority youth development with health promotion to empower an migrant community), we would like to stress the importance of participatory processes in health promotion with young migrants. Further, we suggest examining how the general health of young migrants is affected by taking part in integration and acculturation interventions by civil society, based on studies by Wimelius et al ( 2017 ) and Bergström-Wuolo et al ( 2018 ).…”

Salutogenesis and Migration

“…In the Swedish studies, before 2015, the refugees were from Iran (Bayard-Burfield et al, 2001;Ghazinour et al, 2004;Lindencrona et al, 2008) and the Balkans (Björn et al, 2013;Roth & Ekblad, 2006). After 2015, Syrians and Afghans (Sarkadi et al, 2018) are the dominant refugee populations with some from Eritrea (Bergstrom-Wuolo et al, 2018). The remaining studies are conducted mainly in Global North countries (Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Canada, Australia, United States and Israel).…”