Prevalence of mental health conditions among government-relocated migrants in China: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Relocation migration is one of the important life events that can easily cause mental stress to the individual. China has a large number of government-organized relocation migrants, but little is known about their pooled prevalence of mental health conditions. We searched for publications in English and Chinese up to November 11, 2021, in nine databases: EBSCO, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and China Science and Technology Journal Database. Analysis was performed in Comprehensive Meta-analysis software. The quality of the evidence was assessed with a risk-of-bias tool that consists of 10 items on two subscales. This study is registered on PROSPERO, number CRD42022300665. A total of 30 studies with 24,816 migrants were included in the analysis, all of which had an overall low to moderate risk of bias. The results showed that the pooled overall prevalence of clinically significant symptoms among relocated migrants was 20.2% (95% CI, 16.3−24.7%), while the pooled overall prevalence of mental disorders was 2.2% (95% CI, 0.9−5.1%). Subgroup analyses revealed significant differences in the prevalence of mental health symptoms depending on ethnicity, marital status, move-out area, move-in area, province, and type of relocation. Meta-regression analysis indicated that the prevalence of mental health symptoms among relocated migrants has not increased significantly. The findings of this study suggest that although mental health conditions are not currently prominent among government-relocated migrants in China, special attention should be paid to ethnic-minority migrants, unmarried migrants, migrants from Central and West China, and migrants relocated to protect the environment and/or alleviate poverty.