From Lived Experience to Research Action:
Mi-CARE Sets Priorities for Paediatric
Migrant Health in Europe
New participatory study identifies the top unanswered research questions needed to improve healthcare for children and adolescents with migration experience in Europe
29 July 2026 – The European Academy of Paediatrics’ REACH Strategic Advisory Group published the results of the Mi-CARE Priority Setting partnership in JAMA Network Open. The study, “Partnering With Migrant Caregivers and Clinicians to Determine Research Priorities in Pediatric Migrant Health: A Participative Multi-Phase Survey Study (Mi-CARE),” brought together the voices of migrant caregivers, former migrant children and adolescents, healthcare professionals, and “double experts”, individuals with both lived migration experience and professional healthcare expertise. Together, they identified the most important unanswered research priorities for improving healthcare for children and adolescents with migration experience in Europe.
Conducted between 2024 and 2025, the Mi-CARE study followed the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership methodology. It included two Europe-wide online consultations and a final in-person consensus workshop in Basel. In the first consultation, 256 participants from 25 countries of residence submitted 1,620 questions and comments, which were consolidated into 53 unanswered summary questions. In the second consultation, 576 participants from 31 countries ranked these questions, leading to a shortlist of 25 priorities. The final workshop then agreed on the top 10 research priorities.
The highest-ranked priorities focused on ensuring universal access to healthcare for all migrant children and adolescents, understanding the impact of racism and discrimination on care and long-term health, and identifying the main barriers that prevent migrant children, including those without documentation or health insurance, from accessing healthcare. Other priorities addressed the physical and mental health effects of migration, social determinants such as housing, education and income, the needs of children with chronic illness, disability or complex health needs, unaccompanied minors, professional language support, healthcare worker training, and the involvement of parents and families in care.
The study also highlights the value of participatory research in a field where those most affected have often been underrepresented. The manuscript notes that paediatric migrant health research agendas have rarely been shaped systematically by people with lived and professional experience, despite the importance of these perspectives for relevance and impact.
Children and families with migration experience navigate healthcare systems shaped by language, legal, social, and practical barriers. The priorities identified through Mi-CARE show that improving paediatric migrant health is not only about individual clinical questions. It is also about access, trust, communication, fairness, and the systems around the child.
The Mi-CARE study was the first major project initiated within REACH, the Refugees and Migrants in Europe – Adolescent and Child Health network, a Strategic Advisory Group of the European Academy of Paediatrics. REACH brings together paediatricians and other healthcare workers from multiple European countries and aims to strengthen international collaboration and participatory research approaches to improve paediatric migrant health.
The findings provide a stakeholder-driven framework to guide future research, policy, and practice. EAP REACH encourages researchers, funders, policymakers, national paediatric societies, and healthcare institutions to use these priorities when designing studies, allocating research funding, and developing services for children and adolescents with migration experience.
New ways to test high-risk medical devices.
Manufacturers of medical devices need to test their products before being allowed to market them. Specifically, they require clinical data showing their medical device is safe and efficient. In this context, the EU-funded CORE-MD project will translate expert scientific and clinical evidence on study designs for evaluating high-risk medical devices into advice for EU regulators. The project will propose how new trial designs can contribute and suggest ways to aggregate real-world data from medical device registries.
It will also conduct multidisciplinary workshops to propose a hierarchy of levels of evidence from clinical investigations, as well as educational and training objectives for all stakeholders, to build expertise in regulatory science in Europe. CORE–MD will translate expert scientific and clinical evidence on study designs for evaluating high-risk medical devices into advice for EU regulators, to achieve an appropriate balance between innovation, safety, and effectiveness. A unique collaboration between medical associations, regulatory agencies, notified bodies, academic institutions, patients’ groups, and health technology assessment agencies, will systematically review methodologies for the clinical investigation of high-risk medical devices, recommend how new trial designs can contribute, and advise on methods for aggregating real-world data from medical device registries with experience from clinical practice The consortium is led by the European Society of Cardiology and the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, and involves all 33 specialist medical associations that are members of the Biomedical Alliance in Europe.
