Dear Colleagues,

It is well-known that the global number of migrant workers (about 250 million, according to available estimates) will increase in the future due to ongoing international crises emerging from new geopolitical scenarios as well as the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the gradual reopening of economic and labor markets. Therefore, challenges in terms of political, economic, social, health and safety factors will remain in the years to come.

In 2019, with the Special Issue of IJERPH entitled “Migration, Work and Health”, we attempted to tackle the many complex aspects pertaining to the relationships between migration, work and health.

Still, migrant workers are involved in the so-called “3D jobs”—dangerous, dirty and demanding/degrading.

Still, they are often exposed to poor working conditions, as well as irregular work and flexible shifts, possibly endangering their health and safety and contributing to the development of chronic disorders.

Still, migrant workers generally have reduced access to the health care system, and to occupational health services in particular.

Still, health and safety at work for migrants are understudied and deserve further attention.

Still, occupational injuries and work-related disorders among migrants are underestimated, underdiagnosed and under-reported.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic is also very likely to have a significant impact on migrant workers and undoubtedly enhances their vulnerability as an occupational group, compounded by the risk of discrimination due to growing unemployment rates and possible unfavorable public opinion against immigrants.

It should also be noted that migrant workers are generally over-represented in occupational settings where the pandemic hit more than others and where lockdowns had the most negative impact, e.g., because of the lower possibility of teleworking versus native counterparts. Still, data on over-representation in COVID-19 prevalence in migrants are not solid or consistent, nor are they widely available.

Therefore, we have reason to believe that better surveillance data as well as field studies are still needed to improve understanding of the mechanisms by which migrant workers are possibly in worse health and safety conditions and to provide direction to effective interventions. Moreover, we still believe that there is a need to implement risk assessment, risk management, health surveillance and fitness for work that focuses on migrants in workplaces, in order to improve migrant workers’ quality of working life and to promote their health, within the framework of corporate social responsibility. In these particular hard times, we should definitely take into account the new occupational health and safety context and framework determined by SARS-CoV-2, which has changed and reoriented all the checks and balances and preventive measures in workplaces.

This Second Edition of the Special Issue aims to provide an updated, multidisciplinary and evidence-based state-of-the-art on the occupational health and safety of migrant workers worldwide, covering a comprehensive range of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. We would like to offer researchers and experts the opportunity to publish their original work, especially in the fields of occupational health, public health, epidemiology, social sciences, health economics, and international labor law. Particularly welcomed are data from field studies, intervention effectiveness studies and reviews related to this research area, with special attention paid to the impact of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant workers and workplaces.   

Prof. Dr. Stefano Porru
Guest Editor

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• migrant workers
• occupational safety and health
• occupational injuries
• occupational diseases
• employment relations
• working conditions
• healthcare disparities
• chronic diseases
• public health research
• public health interventions
• workplace health promotion
• evaluation of effectiveness
• SARS-CoV-2
• COVID-19

• Migration, Work and Health in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (14 articles)