▲ Figure 3. Housing as a major Factor of Integration. Adapted by the author from (Ager & Strang, 2008).
2.3. Housing, Health & the concept of ‘home’ The World Health Organisation (2006) defines good health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Good health, both mental and physical, of the incoming population is very important to facilitate good integration. Poor health can manifest as lower levels of social participation, which in turn inhibits the integration process (Wilson, 1998). This reasoning when combined with the concept of integration as a two-way process requiring efforts from the side of the hosts as well as migrants (Berry, 1997), reinforces the need for the good health of the migrant population. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines social determinants of health are defined as the “conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life” (World Health Organisation, 2011, as cited in, Ziersch, et al., 2017, p. 2). Housing is an important parameter that determines the physical and mental well-being of the inhabitants. Health, especially of refugees and asylum seekers, is of high relevance, considering also the increased vulnerability due to the psychological and social effects of being displaced to a new context (Ziersch et al., 2017). There exists no commonly agreed-upon definition of ‘healthy housing’, but the World Health Organization elaborates on housing being more than the physical shelter, but ‘adequate’ housing would mean to possess a ‘home’, which positively cultivates physical and mental well-being while aiding the 13
