Rapid Realist Review of Social Prescribing Evidence for Refugee Populations, 2014-2024

A 2024 rapid realist review synthesizing international evidence on social prescribing and social-capital interventions for refugee, asylum-seeker, and forcibly displaced populations. The review analyzed 7,436 records, with 39 studies contributing to the synthesis, resulting in five intervention families and 15 prioritized program theories. The work was conducted by Victoria Touzel and is available under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Identify effective intervention families for refugee support based on the five identified approaches: barrier-reduction, co-produced navigation, trauma-responsive, community-connected, and skills-training.
• Inform program theory development for social prescribing based on the 15 prioritized Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations.
• Guide workforce investment and service design based on the review's conclusions regarding adapted design, targeted barrier reduction, and genuine co-production.
• Prioritize research on access pathways into social prescribing based on the identified critical evidence gap.

Strengths

• Synthesizes evidence from 7,436 records across six databases and grey literature, covering 2014 to 2024.
• Results are structured into five distinct intervention families and 15 prioritized program theories.
• The review methodology is RAMESES-compliant and was supported by an expert advisory board.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 103.6 KB PDF document, indicating a limited scope focused on review findings rather than raw research data.
• The authors note evidence limitations restrict wider generalizability, particularly regarding population reporting and further marginalized subgroups.
• Formal social prescribing evidence was limited; findings are substantially theory-informed extrapolations from social-capital interventions.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

RAMESES-compliant rapid realist review of six databases, grey literature, and citation chasing.

Time Range

2014-2024

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05 08 05:48:31.

Geography

International evidence