The Top Digital Health Technologies Helping Refugees Around the World

“Refugees are persons who are outside their country of origin for reasons of feared persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order and, as a result, require international protection,” writes the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). However, refugees’ plea isn’t limited to people leaving their home country en masse following atrocious wars or political instability, but can be that of anyone else, like you and me, following unforeseen calamities, be it natural or man-made, leading to similar situations. The November 2018 Camp wildfire in Butte county, California, left thousands of people homeless and forced others to relocate. Almost 10 percent of all disaster-related displacement in 2018 occurred in the United States alone, according to the 2019 Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID). That’s more than 1.2 million new displacements! The World Bank forecasts that by 2050, more than 140 million people will have been forced to move within their countries’ borders in three regions of the world due to the effects of climate change, if no climate action is taken. As such, the increased frequency and intensity of natural events might become the main cause of forced migration in the near future, putting people from developed and developing countries alike in situations similar to what refugees are experiencing right now. We shouldn’t be indifferent to their struggle but try to...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Future of Medicine Healthcare Design Telemedicine & Smartphones digital health technology digital technology digital innovation refugee Source Type: blogs