ABSTRACT
Very little literature on migrant health comes from State health authorities or parliaments, apart from the occasional writings of government-employed doctors and social workers. A survey of the annual reports of the State health departments shows only one recurring theme of interest in migrant health, and that theme is common to all States: the comparatively high rate of notifiable disease among the non-Australian born. Unlike John Ellard, the great majority of writers settled on something that they had no hesitation in defining as a migrant health problem. Suggestions for action on the part of the community in general or migrants themselves have still less content and focus. The community’s main role is to encourage tolerance and understanding of migrants. Social workers and other non-medical health and welfare personnel have extended knowledge of the migrant health situation by drawing on their own experience, very different in many ways from the experience gained by doctors in their dealings with patients.
