The Vall d'Hebron-PROSICS Barcelona, the http://bit.ly/1WR70M1" Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and the Transcultural Psychiatry Program, the Vall d'Hebron http://bit.ly/1aQo4gu" Psychiatry Service, coordinate the new European project MyHealth (Models to Engage Vulnerable Migrants and Refugees in Their Health, through the Community Empowerment and Learning Alliance), which wants to respond to the lack of access to healthcare of the vulnerable immigrant population arriving in Europe. This initiative seeks to optimize and improve healthcare for this group. To do this, models will be developed and implemented based on the knowledge and experience of a European multidisciplinary network, made up of 11 partners from 7 European Union countries.The project was launched last April and will end in March of the year 2020. It has a budget of 1.5 million euros financed by the European Commission within the Health Program of the European agency http://bit.ly/2tgh4bO" CHAFEA (Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency). Its work will focus on women and minors unaccompanied migrants recently arrived in Europe (less than 5 years ago). Basically, three types of pathologies will be analysed. Mental disorders (associated to the migratory act, such as affective and anxiety disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder), infectious diseases, sometimes more frequent in some groups, due to the precarious health situation in the countries of origin or because of the migratory route (such as tuberculosis) and chronic non-transmissible pathologies.The immigrant patient at the centre of the projectMyHealth project aims to improve access to health to the newly arrived immigrant population in Europe. As explained by its coordinator, Núria Serre, doctor in charge of the line of research in Health and Immigration within the International Health Program of the Catalan Institute of Health of Barcelona, "we want to respond to the lack of access to health for the most vulnerable immigrants." For this reason, a "European global health project for the improvement of health care for this group" has been defined. And to do so, it will be tried to involve the immigrant community throughout the process, promoting its empowerment and counting on its opinion within the advisory councils of the project. The project coordinators emphasize that the immigrant and the community are at the centre of the project.MyHealth's first step will be to create a map of the key actors in health and immigration within the 7 consortium countries, as well as the existing technological tools to cover this population and the initiatives and projects that already exist. Then the needs perceived by the newcomers and the people who work there will be analysed.Third, tools and strategies will be designed to address the detected problems, focusing on primary care as the first access door of these people to health. These initiatives will be aimed at empowering them both to health professionals and social workers, taking into account the reality of their communities. To analyse its operation and certify that they are applicable to the whole of the EU, a pilot test will be carried out in 3 European reference hospitals of Germany, the Czech Republic and Catalonia.Lastly, thanks to MyHealth, an interactive map will be created with the information collected, a tool that will facilitate the access of immigrants to existing resources at their place of arrival and their management to health professionals. Thanks to all this, the team and the coordinator of the project trust that "access to health, a non-typified disease among vulnerable immigrants in Europe, will see the light" and, at the same time, "misunderstandings will disappear and they will stop being seen as a threat." In this sense, "improving their health has a direct effect on the health of the community".Seven countries involvedThe project has the involvement of eleven entities from seven European Union countries. In Catalonia, where it is coordinated, participate the Vall d'Hebron Campus, through the VHIR, the services of Infectious Diseases and Psychiatry of the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, through the Transcultural Psychiatry Program, and the Vall d'Hebron PROSICS Barcelona. There are also 3 centres in the United Kingdom, the Migrants's Resource Center, the European Institute of Women's Health and the University of Greenwich and two Germans, the Charite-Universitaetsmedizin Berlin and the Florence Young Und Maria Luisa di Como Gbr. Also, Syn Eirmos NGO of Social Solidarity Astiki Etairia of Greece, Fakultni Nemocnice U Sv. Anny V Brne, of the Czech Republic, and, in Italy, the Health of the Agenzia Regionale e Sociale the Emilia-Romagna. The Catalan company Asserta Global Healthcare Solutions is the technological partner of the project.Immigration in EuropeAccording to data from the United Nations, by 2015 there were 65.3 million displaced people in the world. Of these, more than 21 million had left their country and 3.2 million more were asylum seekers. In the same year, the number of asylum requests in the European Union doubled compared to 1992. 23% of these petitions were of unaccompanied minors. Half of those arriving to the European borders came from Syria. In 2016, according to Idescat data, 13.6% of the Catalan population was of immigrant origin.