Access to healthcare services for migrant and left-behind children : a scoping review

Abstract

Migrant and left-behind children experience health vulnerability that are shaped by climate change, including by climate change, including illness, displacement, and family separation, but also by the organisation of healthcare systems. This scoping review maps the evidence on healthcare services for migrant and left-behind children, with attention to health needs, service provision, barriers and facilitators to access, and gaps in care. Following PRISMA-ScR reporting guidance, searches were conducted in Web of Science/MEDLINE and Scopus for peer-reviewed English-language publications from the database inception to May 2026. After duplicate removal and two-stage screening, 35 publications were included. The evidence shows that migrant and left-behind children require a continuum of preventive, primary, specialist, developmental, nutritional, dental, mental health, and emergency care. However, access is frequently constrained by legal exclusion, documentation requirements, cost, language barriers, limited health system navigation, discrimination, mobility, disrupted continuity of care, and under-resourced services. Left-behind children remain especially under-represented, with limited evidence on preventive, mental health, and chronic care access. Facilitators include inclusive entitlements, community outreach, school provision, interpreters, bilingual professionals, culturally responsive care, health literacy support, and cross-sector coordination. The review argues that healthcare inequity for children affected by migration is produced not only by service absence, but by systems that fail to adapt to children’s legal, linguistic, relational, and transnational realities. Rights-based child health policy should therefore move from episodic and discretionary provision towards universal entitlements, continuous care pathways, and integrated support that is culturally responsive, developmentally appropriate, and accountable to the lived experiences of migrant and left-behind children.