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Migrant Health in Japan: Safety-Net Policies and Advocates' Policy Solutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Neal S. Parikh
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Abstract

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Japanese migrant policy prioritizes immigration control over migrant rights and welfare, which has clear consequences for migrant healthcare. A literature review and interviews of migrant healthcare advocates revealed that disadvantaged migrant groups have poor health and face barriers in accessing mainstream healthcare, particularly for emergency, HIV/AIDS and maternal and child care. Advocates fashion a provisional safety net from existing policies to connect migrants with essential care, but this approach is of limited effectiveness. Policy solutions and relevant advocate opinion are considered in light of the failure of existing policies to meet uninsured migrants' healthcare needs.

Keywords

Safety netmigrant healthcaremigrant health policyadvocacy
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 12 , March 2010 , e3
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2010

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