Refugees resettled in Australia are seeing improvements in their physical, mental and social well-being, new research suggests.

The study, led by researchers at University of Technology Sydney (UTS), looked at the relationship between health assets and the health and welfare of refugees arriving in Australia.

Health assets are defined as “any factor which enhances the ability of individuals, groups, communities, populations, social systems and institutions to maintain and sustain health and well-being and to help to reduce health inequities.”

The researchers say approximately “420,000 humanitarian entrants have been resettled in Australia” since 1991 and the findings of this newest study are a testament to the overall treatment of refugees in Australia.

Twenty-nine observational studies were included in the research.

Using a health asset model, which examined external assets (family, community, population) and internal assets (individual), the study identified connections between assets at the “individual, familial, community, and population levels”.

The researchers reported a relationship between health assets and improved physical, mental, and social well-being of refugees resettled in Australia.

This was most evident in the exploration of social networks where personal agency and ability to access social networks was linked to a sense of belonging, family networks, a connection to people, among others.

The findings also showed the “link between refugee social capital and connectedness to resilience, acculturation, health, and well-being”, concurring with findings from other studies conducted in other high-income country contexts.

While the study identified that, for the most part, there are minimal health inequities amongst refugees in Australia, it did not examine certain health assets.

“Social competence, positive values, commitment to learning, sense of coherence, resistance skills, social competence, training, skills, life objectives,” and others were not examined, but all “specified community health assets” were addressed.

While the research tells a positive, researchers have identified strengths and limitations within their study.

The research did not provide “detailed demographic information on refugee populations,” or more information on refugee groups such as “older people, those with a disability and LGBTQI people.”

The study was also focused on Australia only and its findings may not be relevant to other high-income countries.

The researchers say they are confident that the study had numerous strengths, though, such as that researchers “assessed the quality” of the papers they examined.

In addition, the findings have a high chance of being “generalisable to similar high-income settings.”

The research could “provide policymakers with strategies that can be applied and further tested to improve the health of refugee populations”, the researchers say.

The 2025 study also managed to identify community assets and family assets that were seen across the literature as “essential to harness for the health of the refugee population”.

Katerina Hatzi