Infrastructural familiarity: How Russian-speaking migrants are expected to become active participants in navigating UK vaccination programmes

Abstract

International migrants remain an under-immunised group globally. Understanding expectations that national public health infrastructures pose upon newly arrived migrants is crucial for unpacking the challenges that migrants face when seeking vaccination. Building on the concept of infrastructural familiarity – the embedded knowledge required to navigate public health systems – and focusing on Russian-speaking migrants in the UK, in this article we aim to map how this group of migrants navigate UK vaccination programmes. Following convenience sampling, we conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with Russian-speaking migrants in the UK, including 15 asylum seekers. After transcribing the interviews verbatim, we applied a combination of deductive and inductive techniques for thematic data analysis. Seven asylum seekers were self-identified as men who have sex with men (MSM), which was an important distinction when analysing migrants’ vaccination experiences in their home countries and in the UK. Having limited access to certain vaccines, such as HPV, in their home countries, MSM asylum seekers adopted a role of being proactive participants in the UK public health infrastructure. Non-MSM migrants, however, struggled to become active participants within the UK public health infrastructure, with them referring to logistical and financial challenges in accessing vaccination. Analysing these different experiences, we reflect on how UK public health infrastructures, and vaccination provision in particular, expect newly arrived migrants to become informed and active participants within these infrastructures, thus leaving those who cannot fulfil such expectations on the healthcare margins.