Nepal-Malaysia-UK Partnership

Summary: Nepal-Malaysia-UK partnership on Nepali migrants’ health research (on-going)

About 3.5 million Nepali work abroad, most in poorer paid rather dangerous jobs. There is a lack of scientific research in Nepali migrant workers’ health and well-being, which is a key problem to reducing the burden of disease. Malaysia relies heavily on low-skilled foreign workers including Nepali workers. The benefit to Nepal as a labour supplier country and Malaysia as a labour receiving country comes at the cost, namely a high morbidity and mortality among young Nepali and South Asian workforce. The research community in Nepal and Malaysia on this topic is small and dispersed resulting in limited research activities and, more importantly, co-operation. Furthermore, researchers from Nepal and Malaysia may find it daunting to work on migrant workers’ health issue which is intertwined with other complex political and social issues such as human rights, politics, exploitation and global labour markets. Therefore, the objectives of our network are to build a collaboration to:

(a) encourage sharing knowledge and expertise in this under-researched area;
(b) initiate health research and prevention programmes on Nepali migrant workers in collaboration with universities, migrant related organisations, policy-makers and research institutions of Nepal and Malaysia;
(c) build and enhance capacity of researchers from many disciplines interested in migrant workers’ health.
For further information please contact Dr Pramod Raj Regmi (pregmi@bournemouth.ac.uk)