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Miss Zhen ling Ong

Research Student - MPhil/PhD - Public Health & Policy

United Kingdom

I am a third-year PhD student with a research interest in migration and health. My PhD aims to explore the safety, gender, and health and well-being concerns of adolescent Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia, taking a youth-centered participatory and collaborative approach. To facilitate ethical, safe, and meaningful youth participation, this required consulting local child protection organisations and refugee leaders throughout the research.

Working with a community-based co-researcher, we first explored what safety means to Rohingya girls and worked with Rohingya girls to organise their Safe Space community event. We then established a mixed-gender refugee youth advisory committee to inform which issues to focus on. This involved collaborating with a refugee youth-led organisation to deliver capacity-buliding workshops about becoming a change agent. Next, youth advisors' input will inform qualitative case studies to understand common life trajectories and challenges facing Rohingya adolescents in Malaysia.

These Malaysia-based qualitative findings will then be triangulated with secondary analysis of survey data from Rohingya adolescents based in Cox's Bazar about issues prioritised by the youth advisors, to compare differences between urban versus camp settings. It is hoped that the findings will inform gender- and context-sensitive programming together with refugee adolescents.

Affiliations

Department of Global Health and Development
Faculty of Public Health and Policy

Research

I have an interdisciplinary research interest in migration health and social policies in low-and middle-income countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. My research interest is attributed to volunteering experiences and subsequent research related to the health and education of undocumented, stateless, refugee and migrant children in Malaysia.
Research Area
Adolescent health
Child protection
Gender-based violence
Global health
Migration
Social and structural determinants of health
Health inequalities
Country
Malaysia
United Kingdom
Region
East Asia & Pacific (developing only)

Selected Publications

Migration health ethics in Southeast Asia: a scoping review
Ng, SH; Kaur, S; Cheah, PY; ONG, ZL; Lim, J; Voo, TC;
2024
Wellcome Open Research
Migration health ethics in Southeast Asia: a scoping review.
Ng, SH; Kaur, S; Cheah, PY; ONG, ZL; Lim, J; Voo, TC;
2024
Wellcome open research
Migration health ethics in Southeast Asia: a scoping review
Ng, SH; Kaur, S; Cheah, PY; ONG, ZL; Lim, J; Voo, TC;
2023
Wellcome Open Research
Undocumented: An examination of legal identity and education provision for children in Malaysia.
Loganathan, T; Chan, ZX; Hassan, F; ONG, ZL; Majid, HA;
2022
PloS One
Improving infant feeding, care, and dental hygiene practices in South Asian infants aged younger than 2 years in east London through women's group participatory learning and action cycles (NEON): a behaviour intervention trial
Manikam, L; Allaham, S; ONG, ZL; Heys, M; Llewellyn, C; Batura, N; Hayward, A; Lakshman, R; Gilmour, J; Martin, KW; Irish, C; Archibong, M; Clarkson, C; Marsh, M; Daley, D; Lakhanpaul, M; Nutkins, A;
2021
The Lancet
Association between sleep quality and type 2 diabetes at 20-year follow-up in the Southall and Brent REvisited (SABRE) cohort: a triethnic analysis.
ONG, ZL; Chaturvedi, N; Tillin, T; Dale, C; Garfield, V;
2021
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
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