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The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the connection between social marketing and transformative service research (TSR), providing a conceptual framework and implications for both theory and practice. The research explores the role marketing plays in a political deterrence campaign and its impact on service systems in meeting the needs of refugees and asylum seekers.

This qualitative research is based on 24 in-depth interviews with service providers, and refugees and asylum seekers and a critical discourse analysis examining campaign materials including political press statements, news media articles and government policy documents.

This paper explores where social marketing and TSR intersect in their aims to promote social change. TSR calls on marketers to address vulnerability related to social issues such as poverty, forced migration and discrimination. The research provides evidence that service systems actors use practices of resistance to challenge dominant discourses in attempts to relieve suffering for refugees and asylum seekers.

The authors contribute by extending the body of work that investigates how service systems can relieve suffering. The study also examines how marketing tactics and strategies underpin a political campaign designed to deter asylum seekers crossing sovereign borders. The research makes three important contributions. First, the research focuses on a significant international problem of better understanding how service systems can relieve suffering for refugees and asylum seekers. Second, it examines how oppositional discourses impact on service systems’ ability to create and sustain social change. Third, it investigates how service systems actors deploy practices of resistance to enact social change.

This research highlights the important role of engaging as consumer-citizens to address social change, particularly for vulnerable groups, such as refugees and asylum seekers.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the key issues of concern for asylum seekers in the UK by focusing on their in depth talk about their experiences, a so far neglected element in the current debate about asylum seeking.

The study involved thematic analysis of asylum seekers’ accounts of their lives in their country of origin, their journeys to the UK and experiences following arrival. Nine participants took part in semi-structured interviews.

Analysis resulted in seven themes; the importance of safety, negative experiences of the Home Office, support, emotional effects, significance of family, hopes for the future and the positive experiences of living in the UK.

Asylum seekers largely left their countries of origin to escape conflict, persecution, violence, arranged marriages and rape. They reported safety as a key concern and for this reason they were scared to return home.

The research found Asylum seekers have fled traumatic situations and then have a difficult time in the UK. A more compassionate and supportive approach is needed. Policy recommendations are made with the aim of improving service responses.

The research demonstrates that the public understanding of asylum seeking does not match asylum seekers’ experiences and increased knowledge may help to improve this (mis) understanding.

There is currently a lack of literature and empirical investigation of this subject area, so this research makes a contribution to the field of understanding asylum seekers’ experiences. The paper's focus is original and important combining asylum seekers’ accounts of their experiences following arrival in the UK. This subject is strategically important due to the pressing need to develop holistic and culturally sensitive research, which bridges and informs academia, more sensitive service responses and civil society.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of migration on the livelihoods of Ethiopians. It is widely acclaimed that migration has positive effects on livelihoods. This paper investigates whether this claim is a fallacy or a reality. Can migration be conceptualized as a strategy for livelihood enhancement? Although Ethiopia has a large number of migrants both internally and externally, this paper focuses on the impact of external migration on the livelihoods of Ethiopian migrants and their families.

Using primary data, the paper attempts to establish whether migration enhances livelihoods. Qualitative data are used. Primary data were collected and analyzed using SurveyMonkey. SurveyMonkey is an internet-based software that has a facility for interview questions and it analyses data automatically on submission of responses. The survey achieved a response rate of 52 percent (218 out of 420). A follow-up survey, done between March 20 and April 16, 2018 to validate the online responses, involved 12 respondents.

Results show that migration is important in the sustenance of livelihoods. Both pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits have been realised. In addition, migration also benefits development at home.

The Ethiopian Government should develop policy options that promote the inflow of remittances for livelihood enhancement.

The paper uses SurveyMonkey to gather data from a number of respondents (crowdsourcing data collection). The SurveyMonkey made possible a crowd data gathering process.

Reforms of the system for the accommodation and support needs of asylum seekers entering the United Kingdom (UK) during the twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries have meant that the support of asylum seekers has largely moved away from mainstream social work to dedicated asylum support teams. This article investigates how the workers engaged as ‘asylum support workers’ understand and make sense of their participation in the support of asylum seekers dispersed across the UK. By drawing on qualitative research with asylum support workers, this paper looks at how such workers make sense of their roles and how the ‘support’ of asylum seekers is conceived. The paper concludes that, by working in this political and controversial area of work, workers are constantly finding ways to negotiate their support role within a dominant framework of control.

This paper aims to investigate the role that Italian third sector organizations have in the process of social and administrative categorization of newly arrived migrants living with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/Aids) or hepatitis b. In Italy, free access to health is provided to all migrants and residence permits for medical treatment is granted for migrants living with a “serious illness” since the 1990s. The case of HIV/Aids and hepatitis b shows how this political openness, however, clashes with the tightening of migration policies.

The study is based on ethnographic research conducted between 2014 and 2016 within an associative centre that deals with the socio-health care of newly arrived migrants in Rome. In addition to the participant observations, the study is based in semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 health-care providers (nurses, health-care assistants and socio-cultural mediators) and doctors and with 22 migrants coming from Sub-Saharan Africa and living with HIV/AIDS (10) and hepatitis b (12).

In Italy, the two infections have been identified as top diseases among migrant populations in the country but if HIV/Aids is always considered as a “serious illness”, hepatitis b is considered as a public health priority only in the case of a treatment prescription. These aspects have an important impact on the interactions between medical and social professionals and migrants affected by HIV/AIDS and hepatitis b, contributing differently to the creation of legal categories assigned to migrants.

The case of HIV/Aids and hepatitis b shows how the political openness of the public health system, clashes with the tightening of migration policies and analyse the role of the third sector has in this issue.

There are ongoing concerns that asylum seekers who have been tortured and who suffer trauma‐related mental disorders are being refused protection by countries in which they seek asylum. The study described here assessed a consecutive sample of recently arrived asylum seekers attending immigration agents in Sydney, Australia, using a series of structured measures. Participants were followed up to assess the outcomes of their refugee applications. The 73 participants, who had resided in Australia for an average of 4.3 months, reported high rates of torture (51%), and that group was at highest risk of suffering a combination of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression, a response pattern associated with substantial levels of psychosocial disability. Neither past torture nor current psychiatric disorder influenced the outcomes of refugee applications. The study raises further concerns that tortured asylum seekers and others with trauma‐related mental disorder may be at risk of repatriation to their countries of origin.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the diversity of trauma Latin American (LA) refugee children in the USA experience across migration. It proposes ways that practitioners and policymakers can use knowledge from existing research to improve services and respect the rights of LA children.

The paper used a systematic review approach supplemented by additional sources to capture current representative knowledge. The paper uses staged migration and social ecological approaches for organization and discussion.

LA children have historically and contemporarily been exposed to more instances and types of trauma than their non-immigrant US counterparts. LA refugee children have a high need for international protection that is not reflected in the US policy.

Knowledge of possible trauma types among LA children can inform practitioner expectations and prepare them for care management. Officers must be well-trained in both potential trauma-related content and geographic context and have excellent interviewing skills. Lawyers, advocates and judges – the latter who create precedent – play a critical role in children’s cases and should have access to high-quality, geographically and historically relevant and contemporary information.

The levels of violence in Latin America; the rate of child trauma; and the spike in unaccompanied children at the border compels the USA to reassess their positions on (a) refugee caps, (b) asylum screenings and (c) interception-related policies, protocol and practice.

This the first review to specifically focus on empirical trauma research specific to the LA child’s migration experience.

The literature tends to use ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘refugee’ interchangeably, creating uncertainty about the mental health of asylum seekers. However, asylum seekers occupy a unique position in British society which differentiates them from people with refugee status and which may have implications for their mental health. For example, ‘asylum seekers’ are supported and accommodated in dispersal areas under the National Asylum Support Service and they are not entitled to work. This mixed‐methods study investigated asylum seekers' symptoms of psychological distress, using mental health screening questionnaires (N = 29) and asylum seekers' subjective experiences of the asylum process, its potential impacts on their mental health, and participants' suggestions for tackling mental health needs, using in‐depth interviews (N = 8). Asylum seekers, refugees and practitioners working with asylum seekers were consulted from the outset regarding the cultural sensitivity of the measures used. Given the potential limitations of using ‘idioms of distress’ across cultures, interview data provided rich descriptive accounts which helped locate the mental health needs that the asylum seekers experienced in the specificities of each participant's social context. Asylum seekers originated from 13 countries. The results revealed that psychological distress is common among asylum seekers (for example anxiety and post‐traumatic stress), but so are post‐migratory living difficulties (for example accommodation, discrimination, worry about family back home, not being allowed to work). They also report mixed experiences of health and social care services. These results suggest that asylum seekers' unique social position may affect their mental health. Implications for practice are presented and potential limitations highlighted.

The purpose of this paper is to share research findings on the lived experiences of asylum seekers in Bristol (UK), with a particular focus on psychological needs and sources of resilience.

The study was designed following the principles of action research and was carried out in three phases involving nine co-researchers. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the resulting data, collected through semi-structured interviews.

The findings highlight challenges which are faced by asylum seekers after migrating to the UK and indicate how these do not allow for psychological needs to be met, undermining resilience. Co-researchers indicated that aspects of the asylum system were perceived as unfair, adding to existing losses and promoting fear. Strength was found through engaging with communities and religious practices.

The research suggests that asylum seekers feel misrepresented and misunderstood within the public realm and raises serious questions around the current asylum legislation. It offers practitioners insight into key determinants for psychological well-being from the perspective of asylum seekers, providing suggestions for sensitive and appropriate interventions.

The study offers original insights into asylum seekers’ experiences, with a specific focus on Bristol. The use of action research and the involvement of asylum seekers as co-researchers are also noteworthy, as collaborative research is scarce in this field.

Immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees living in Europe face a number of challenges in accessing or using health information and healthcare services available in their host countries. To resolve these issues and deliver the necessary services, providers must take a comprehensive approach to better understand the types of health information and healthcare services that these individuals need, seek and use. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop that comprehensive approach.

In this paper, a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed publications was performed, with 3.013 articles collected from various databases. A total of 57 qualifying papers on studies conducted in Europe were included in the review after applying the predefined inclusion and exclusion requirements, screening processes and eliminating duplicates. The information seeking and communication model (ISCM) was used in the analysis.

The findings revealed that while many health information and healthcare services are accessible in Europe for immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, many of these individuals are unaware of their existence or how to access them. While our findings do not specify what health-related information these groups need, use or seek, they do suggest the importance and value of providing mental health, sexual health and HIV, as well as pregnancy and childbirth information and services. Furthermore, according to our results, health information services should be fact-based, easy to understand and raise awareness about healthcare structure and services available in Europe for this vulnerable population.

This study has a range of practical implications, including (1) highlighting the need for mental health and behavioural health services and (2) stressing the value of addressing cultural context and religious values while investigating (health) information seeking of people with foreign background.

This is one of the first studies to systematically review and examine the behaviour of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in relation to health information and healthcare services in the European context.