Non-Communicable Diseases and Risk Factors in Migrants from South Asian Countries

The following document contains a review for a research project on migration and chronic or non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It begins with an overview of the geographical scope; the review focuses specifically on migrants that originate in small South Asian countries of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Next, it outlines the ‘healthy migrant effect’, a phenomenon where migrants experience better health outcomes than the local or sending populations initially, but worse outcomes over the longer-term. It then turns to NCDs and risk factors in turn. For each NCD or risk factor, an overview of data on incidence in sending countries is given, followed by a discussion of any relevant literature relating to the health of migrants from the sending countries of interest.