About this Research Topic
International borders are expressed in varying degrees of openness to include soft and hard borders. Sometimes there are only border markers (as in the EU), or there may be custom and immigration controls, fences, walls, border guards, and even military troops in place. Although these barriers seem stable, history and current events have demonstrated how easily international borders can change. The diversity of border types, and the contrasts between adjacent countries have numerous consequences on human exchanges and mobility, which can lead to acute crises due to wars or natural disasters, or long-term situations resulting from wars or socioeconomic differences.
Excluding islands, the 145 land-based nation-states around the world exhibit a variety of international border types. Borders constrain human movements, and in turn constrain disease transmission. During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the globalized world promptly used border control to restrict population movements with the aim of halting the spread of the epidemic. As borders are introduced, differences emerge between the two border sides including differences in level of health care facilities, stigma, discrimination, legal rights and protections. These differences may lead to some patients seeking care on one side of the border over the other. Socioeconomic inequalities between countries may enhance transactional sex and sex work. Furthermore, the decrease of social scrutiny on the other side of the border may relax the social constraints of casual sex. On both sides of a border, both countries have a national plan to implement, central authorities to report to, resulting in two distinct and often poorly connected networks of health professionals that are driven by their own internal constraints. However, vectors and reservoirs do not have passports, and therefore on both sides of a border, health professionals often face the same diseases, and the affected populations are often similar. It is therefore crucial to share health assessments, and to coordinate epidemiological surveillance, prevention and care on both sides of borders.
This Research Topic aims to compile a breadth of articles on border health from around the world to enhance our reflection on this topic. In this Research Topic, the editors welcome submissions that will describe a variety of situations regarding border health, whether this concerns crises caused by war or natural disasters, or just differences between countries and the coordination problems and solutions to achieve better health outcomes in these circumstances. There needs to be a focus on the occurrences within national boundaries as well as the occurrences at the interface with others. This topic aims to gather manuscripts from both sides of a given border to try to achieve a shared endeavor to capture the intricacies of a health situation. The eligible themes may concern infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, nutritional problems, refugees, health access and cooperation programmes.
Excluding islands, the 145 land-based nation-states around the world exhibit a variety of international border types. Borders constrain human movements, and in turn constrain disease transmission. During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the globalized world promptly used border control to restrict population movements with the aim of halting the spread of the epidemic. As borders are introduced, differences emerge between the two border sides including differences in level of health care facilities, stigma, discrimination, legal rights and protections. These differences may lead to some patients seeking care on one side of the border over the other. Socioeconomic inequalities between countries may enhance transactional sex and sex work. Furthermore, the decrease of social scrutiny on the other side of the border may relax the social constraints of casual sex. On both sides of a border, both countries have a national plan to implement, central authorities to report to, resulting in two distinct and often poorly connected networks of health professionals that are driven by their own internal constraints. However, vectors and reservoirs do not have passports, and therefore on both sides of a border, health professionals often face the same diseases, and the affected populations are often similar. It is therefore crucial to share health assessments, and to coordinate epidemiological surveillance, prevention and care on both sides of borders.
This Research Topic aims to compile a breadth of articles on border health from around the world to enhance our reflection on this topic. In this Research Topic, the editors welcome submissions that will describe a variety of situations regarding border health, whether this concerns crises caused by war or natural disasters, or just differences between countries and the coordination problems and solutions to achieve better health outcomes in these circumstances. There needs to be a focus on the occurrences within national boundaries as well as the occurrences at the interface with others. This topic aims to gather manuscripts from both sides of a given border to try to achieve a shared endeavor to capture the intricacies of a health situation. The eligible themes may concern infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, nutritional problems, refugees, health access and cooperation programmes.
Keywords: international borders, cross-border, border crossing, international health, global health, disease surveillance, infectious diseases, cooperation, epidemiology, population movements
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