Call for papers - Mental health of immigrants

Guest Editor

Alvin Kuowei Tay, PhD, UNSW, Australia

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 28 March 2025

BMC Public Health is calling for submissions to our Collection, Mental health of immigrants. As migration continues to be a global phenomenon, understanding and addressing the mental health needs of immigrants are paramount.

This collection seeks to explore various aspects of immigrant mental health, including but not limited to acculturation stress, social support networks, access to mental health services, cultural factors, and resilience.

New Content Item This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being and SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities.

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Meet the Guest Editor

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Alvin Kuowei Tay, PhD, UNSW, Australia; United Nations, USA

Dr Alvin K. Tay is an internationally recognized clinician-scientist in mental health. He leads a program of research designing, adapting, implementing, and upscaling mental health interventions for vulnerable populations worldwide. He has been an advisor to the United Nations since 2018 where he leads the global scientific work to enhance the UN security system’s psychosocial response to wide-ranging critical incidents (e.g., armed conflict, disasters, displacement) impacting humanitarian personnel across 125+ peacekeeping and country office settings. This role brings his work in full circle as he leverages his expertise – with over 15 years of experience – across overlapping fields of epidemiology, psychometrics, biostatistics, clinical psychology, public health, and psychosocial interventions.

About the Collection

BMC Public Health is calling for submissions to our Collection, Mental health of immigrants.

Migration is a global phenomenon, and the mental health of immigrants represents a nexus of various factors, including acculturation stress, social isolation, discrimination, language barriers, and pre-migration trauma. Exploring these complexities offers insights crucial for developing effective public health interventions and policies to address mental health disparities in immigrant communities. By enhancing comprehension of this issue, the Collection aims to support evidence-based strategies fostering inclusivity, equity, and resilience in diverse communities.

We welcome submissions across a range of topics, including but not limited to:

Acculturation stress among immigrant populations
Social isolation and mental health outcomes in immigrant communities
Discrimination and its impact on immigrant mental health
Language barriers and access to mental health services for immigrants
Pre-migration trauma and its long-term effects on mental health
Cultural factors influencing mental health help-seeking behaviors among immigrants
Ethnicity and mental health outcomes in immigrant communities
Socioeconomic status and mental health disparities among immigrants

This collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being and SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities. Promoting mental health among immigrants contributes indeed to the overall goal of ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all, and can help identify and address inequalities in accessing mental health services and resources.

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Mental health of immigrants" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.