Social Capital and Rural Health for Refugee Communities in Australia

Abstract

Refugee resettlement significantly contributes to Australia’s migration programs, with recent policy directives prioritising rural resettlement. As a result, the cultural diversity of populations of several Australian rural towns has substantially expanded. Newcomers may encounter challenges becoming part of closed social networks and accessing the resources they need for a healthy life in resettlement. However, there are also benefits that stem from positive integration for newcomers and for receiving populations. As part of a larger study, which aimed to explore facilitators and barriers to successful resettlement in a rural setting, the objective of this paper was to show how social ties were important for participants’ health, both facilitating access to resources, including health services, and connecting people to health-promoting living conditions. In-depth individual interviews with 44 participants from refugee communities originally from Africa and South-East Asia, settled in a rural South Australian town, were conducted. Participants were invited to the study through snowball sampling via known connections between the researchers and key people within the communities. Interview transcripts were analysed using framework thematic analysis. The findings demonstrate how participants drew on connections within their cultural communities, reflecting collectivist cultural values. These social ties were key to enabling access to resources for health. These included emotional resources, such as a sense of belonging, as well as physical and practical resources, including food, housing, and/or accessing services. Several participants were also working towards a career in the health industry. Populations from refugee communities in rural towns are growing, not only with the continuation of new arrivals to these towns, but also as the settled populations expand their families and communities. Effective health service provision in these locations needs to serve these growing communities, and there is scope for services to tap into community networks to assist with this.

Social Support Networks and Care for People Who Use Harmful Drugs

“…Studies in this field have shown the influence of family and friends [ 20 , 21 ], religious institutions [ 4 , 18 , 20 ], and work [ 19 , 22 ] on the everyday life of people in mental health services. Even with other groups, such as refugees [ 25 ], the centrality of social networks is demonstrated. Occupational therapists are recognized as one of the professionals who have the ability to work through and with social networks [ 26 ].…”

A scoping review on the barriers to and facilitators of health services utilisation related to refugee settlement in regional or rural areas of the host country

“…This is not surprising; as noted in the Background healthcare can be di cult to access for all members of rural communities. Factors that were recognised as impacting on access, including the size of the rural or regional town or city, a lack of transportation, and the simple availability of health specialist services [13,20,21,29,30,32,34,36,39]. In Germany, Hahn et al [34] reported that the social security system limits access to healthcare and specialists.…”

“…In addition, refugees often perceived themselves as outsiders due to language barriers, different cultural beliefs, and their unemployment status. As a consequence of these issues, it was identi ed that improving access to affordable housing within familiar communities, facilitating language support and industry-speci c language training, employment access, and competence level education for children would be bene cial as they encourage healthy lifestyle behaviours and increase feelings of inclusion and belonging, all of which contribute to successful resettlement and encourage access to healthcare [26,28,30,32]. Additionally, to facilitate communication, dissemination of health information, and prevention and selfmanagement of chronic disease, the creation of yers in different languages, the use of SMS messages, the adaptation of governmental messages to the different religious and cultural backgrounds, as well as the use of pictures and audio-visual messages with simple, clear, and concise language, will allow more refugees to be individually informed rather than having to rely on second-hand information from community leaders, friends, family, or staff from service agencies [23,31,35,37,38].…”

“…For mental health problems, the development of glossaries and cultural psychological measurement tools in the language of the origin country could be bene cial [21]. Also, because of the scarcity of highly skilled mental healthcare staff in some rural areas, the integration of mental health support into primary healthcare as well as engaging volunteers from the community to provide support and training healthcare providers to provide cultural safety could be considered [21,23,25,29,30]. In that regard, refugees with previous quali cations also mentioned a desire to join the healthcare system, but unfortunately, this is impaired due to a lack of credential recognition and potential institutional racism [30].…”

Unpacking Social Capital as A Determinant of Sustainable Agriculture Adoption: A Literature Review

“…Social capital is a concept that refers to resources embedded in social networks and relationships that can be mobilised to achieve specific goals (Mwanri et al, 2023). French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu first introduced the concept of social capital in the 1980s.…”