Migrant understandings of health and their health related practices in diverse neighbourhoods

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Carsten Butsch
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 505387561

In spite an increasing share of the population with a so-called migration background in Germany, relatively little is known about the specific health needs and the disease burden of these population groups. Also, the specific determinants of the disease burden are not well understood yet. The same holds true for the health practices of migrant populations in Germany, which are influenced by individual understandings of health and which have significant influence on the health status. The project analyses health practices in urban quarters with high proportions of migrant population and aims at conceptually develop the understanding of culturally-based explanation models of health, disease and healing. From a praxis-theory perspective the emergence of medical diversity, understood as the development of individual concepts of health and disease, and the resulting access to health care will be studied. The project’s guiding question is: Why and in how far do different understandings of health and disease influence migrants’ health practices and the structures of the health care system? For thematic areas will be explored: (1) migrants’ health practices, (2) culturally-influenced understandings of health and disease, (3) migrants’ medical diversity in diverse settings, (4) health practices and -structures. Research areas are the diverse urban quarters of Cologne-Mülheim and Bonn Neu-Tannenbusch with a high percentage of migrant populations. In three work phases, quantitative, qualitative and participatory methods will be sequentially integrated. Thus the project will contribute to a deeper understanding of migrants’ health and develop a new concept for the analysis of the emergence of health practices in diverse quarters.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Frauke Kraas