How do living conditions and local healthcare systems affect the health of undocumented migrants in European cities?
This online lecture explores their health needs and the barriers they face in accessing care, highlighting the role of public institutions, healthcare professionals and NGOs in addressing gaps in healthcare provision.
Key Takeaway: Attendees will gain insight into the health inequalities experienced by undocumented migrants and how local healthcare systems, institutional arrangements and collaboration between different actors can shape access to care across European cities.
Date: Tuesday, 24 November 2026
Time: 11:00 – 12:30 CEST
Format: Online Lecture + Live Q&A
Audience: Free and open to everyone (students, researchers, professionals, and general public)
Register here
Register by 16 November!
Please keep in mind that the link to the Zoom platform, you’ll receive one day before the online lecture.
Yves Jackson is a medical doctor and a professor of medicine at the University Hospital and University of Geneva. His clinical practice and research focuses on health inequities and vulnerable groups of population, among them migrants in precarious situation. He has coordinated the GRACE project funded by the 4EU+ Alliance in 2025 - 2026.
Marie Jelínková is an Associate Professor of Public and Social Policy at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague. Her research focuses on migration and integration policies, multilevel governance, and the precarious position of migrants, particularly in relation to their access to public services. Her recent work examines healthcare access for irregular migrants across European cities, with particular attention to the role of local actors, institutional arrangements, and healthcare bricolage in overcoming barriers to care.
Professor Marie Jelínková together with professor Yves Jackson will give a speech on Health, Living Conditions and Healthcare Access among Undocumented Migrants in European Cities.
Europe is host to the largest migrant population worldwide. Most live in urban areas and an unknown proportion reside without a valid residency permit. Undocumented migrants' health needs remain poorly known, and they are usually not considered in policy-making, thus fostering significant health inequalities. This presentation will summarize the current evidence regarding the profile and health needs of undocumented migrants in Europe with a focus on Geneva, Switzerland.
The following part of the presentation focuses on how healthcare access for irregular migrants works in practice. Drawing on qualitative research in six European cities (Geneva, Milan, Paris, Frankfurt, Prague and Copenhagen), it explores how local institutional arrangements, healthcare professionals, public institutions and NGOs shape access to care. Using the concept of healthcare bricolage, it examines how different actors navigate gaps in formal healthcare systems and why similar legal frameworks can produce very different realities of care.
Marco Boffi, Ph.D., psychologist, is Associate Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Milan. He conducts theoretically-driven research with strong applied implications in local, national and international interdisciplinary settings involving multiple stakeholders such as academic institutions, policy makers and NGOs. His research focuses on the relation between environment, individual wellbeing and collective quality of life to support the transition towards environmental and psychological sustainability. Since 2007 his research specialisms include: social and psychological aspects of community engagement and participatory codesign, in particular processes conducive to wellbeing; understanding people’s relationship with places, particularly in urban and landscape transformations also through digital tools (VR/AR simulations); understanding of psychological factors favoring environmental sustainability, with a focus on formal and informal educational settings.
Professor Marco Boffi will give a speech on The places in mind. From subjective experience to urban design and planning.
Urban regeneration interventions have become a central theme in the social and design sciences, involving different disciplinary areas that investigate material and intangible aspects of the relationship between places and the communities. The role of places as activators of psychological well-being has become a crucial issue: emotions, stress reduction and affective place-related dimensions are key variables to understand how to design places that foster a positive relationship, but their impact is still poorly recognized and measured in the applied field. Starting from this perspective, this contribution presents an ecosystem of digital tools that allows to integrate behavioral, spatial and psycho-social information in the evaluation of the quality of environments. The method allows to analyze the psychological experience of places and to explore regeneration scenarios through AR and VR, favoring the involvement of citizens. The implications for an evidence-based design approach are discussed through concrete case studies.