Speaker
Description
Author: Charlotte De Kock (Ghent University)
Background: Displaced populations in Europe, including applicants for international protection and undocumented individuals, face elevated risks of mental health and substance use related problems due to pre- and post-migration stressors such as war trauma, hazardous journeys, and fragmented reception conditions. While WHO and academics advocate prioritizing mental health in European reception settings, most evidence-based interventions originate from low- and middle-income countries and to not evaluate substance use outcomes, leaving EU-specific strategies underdeveloped.
Methods: This mixed-methods study examines gaps in substance use support across reception settings in the EU and across the intervention spectrum. Data derive from: (1) a 2023 questionnaire profiling training and intervention needs among reception workers (n=98) and (2) a 2025 scoping review (Web of Science, targeted surveys) mapping substance use related interventions in European reception contexts.
Results: 72% of reception workers did not receive any formal training related to substance use, with over 80% prioritising the need for training on prevention, intoxication assessment, and incident management. Meanwhile, the top priority highlighted by participants was the accessibility of treatment services. The review in turn identified sparse, ad hoc, predominantly unevaluated interventions in EU settings. Some WHO-developed tools (MHGap, ASSIST, ProblemManagement+, SelfHelp+) have documented outcome effectiveness. Recent years showed an increase in the publication of evaluation designs in this domain in Europe (e.g. BePrepared, Step-by-step, STARC-SUD).
Discussion: The results highlight the pressing need to invest in staff training and scale-up evidenced interventions to meet substance use related needs of displaced populations in Europe. Three pathways emerge from these findings: (1) adapting and evaluating evidence-based global interventions in EU reception contexts increasingly resembling low-resource settings, (2) Evaluating local intervention program theory and scalability. Crucially, (3) structural barriers such limited healthcare access and social exclusion demand renewed attention to the effect of and need for structural prevention.
| Conflict of interest | NA |
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