Zelia Muggli

Zélia Maria Araújo da Silva Muggli is a medical doctor with a degree in medicine from the University of Lisbon, a Master’s Degree in Health and Development (IHMT-UNL)  and a PhD in International Health (IHMT-UNL). She has over 20 years of experience in clinical, training and advisory roles in Paediatrics and Community Child Health in Portugal, UK, Oman and Holland. These included clinical needs evaluation of children at risk, such as immigrants and refugees.

Currently she is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Global Public Health Unit.

In 2019 and 2020 she was the fieldwork coordinator in the first cohort study in the country investigating  health trajectories of immigrant children, a project which gained  financing from the European Commission  Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund ( PT/2018/FAMI/350). Since then she has been involved on immigrant children health ongoing cohorts in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon , as well as in a partnership analysing data on health profiles from cohorts of children across Europe, Africa, South America and Australia with a focus on social inequalities and child behaviour.

From  2018  to date she has mentored seven MSc Health and Development students and at present supervises one PhD candidate in International Health. Zélia has contributed to the delivery of MSc-level lectures in the Community Health Interventions course, collaborating on development and instruction of key subject areas.

She has been regularly participating and attending scientific events on health, migration and equity such as the  European and World Public Health congresses and  the WHO Global Schools on Refugee and Migrant Health .

She is a Member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and of the Global Society on Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Health.

Member of the Population Health, Policies and Services Group (PPS) in the Global Public Health Unit.

Main areas of interest: health determinants and child health, health inequalities, migrant child health, child development and mental health, cohort studies, health policies.

Current research :

Member of the team carrying out cohort studies focussing on migrant child health trajectories in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Has also been evaluating the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the socioeconomic dynamics and healthcare access of families.

Involved in a partnership to establish a protocol for the meta-analysis of pooled data from cohorts of children in Portugal, Norway, Brazil, Australia and Ghana

Past research: Perception of health professionals and parents on the impact of economic crises on child health – studies conducted in ACES Sintra, ACES Amadora and ACES Almada-Seixal. Results on the study in ACES Almeida-Seixal were presented on the 5º National Congress of Tropical Medicine ( Lisbon, 2019).

1. Muggli Z, Mertens T, Loureiro H, Amado R, Vaz D, O Martins MR. Patterns of healthcare use among children with immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds in 2019 and 2020: evidence from the health trajectories of Immigrant Children cohort study in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, Portugal. BMC Public Health 23, 2531 (2023).  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-17402-z
2. Muggli Z, Mertens T, Amado R, et al. Cohort profile: Health trajectories of Immigrant Children (CRIAS)–a prospective cohort study in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, Portugal. BMJ Open 2022;12: e061919. http://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-061919
3. Muggli Z, Mertens T, -Sá S, Amado R, Teixeira AL, Vaz D, O Martins MR. Migration as a Determinant in the Development of Children Emotional and Behaviour Problems: A Quantitative Study for Lisbon Region, Portugal.Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 6;18(2):375. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020375
4. O Martins, M. R., Shaaban, A. N., Abecasis, A., Muggli, Z., Amado, R., Vaz, D., Dias, S. S., Silva, A. C., Fronteira, I. Are immigrants more vulnerable to the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19? A cross-sectional study in Amadora Municipality, Lisbon metropolitan area. Frontiers in public health, 10, 920308. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.920308
5. M. Rosário Oliveira Martins (coord.), Zélia Muggli, Regina Amado, António Carlos Silva, Dora Vaz, Inês Fronteira. Percurso de saúde da criança imigrante: um estudo de coorte para o concelho da Amadora. Coleção Estudos – 74, Observatório das Migrações. Alto Comissariado para as Migrações (ACM, I.P.), Lisboa, 2023