A New Canada-Mongolia Medical Tourism Research Collaboration

Global Health

Population and Public Health

Medical tourism (MT) entails the intentional pursuit of medical care beyond the borders of a patient's home country, privately arranged for and usually paid for out of pocket. These patients are motivated by high costs of care in their home countries, higher quality or faster care abroad, and/or the inability to access care in their home countries. Research on the potential health equity impacts of MT has generally focused on patients traveling from the Global North, thus ignoring the large numbers of patients from the Global South traveling across lower and middle income countries to access medical care. These patients represent different challenges to their home health systems that require independent investigation. Mongolia is increasingly a source of medical tourists for nearby countries promoting medical care to foreign patients. The aim of this Meetings, Planning and Dissemination grant is to develop collaborative research networks in Mongolia, which will ground future comparative research examining the impacts of MT on a diverse array of health systems. Canadians represent the second largest group of international investors in Mongolia and will benefit from a better understanding of the forces shaping the health system of the country and, by extension, the health of Mongolia's citizens. Further to this, we may glean insights into how Mongolian officials and health care providers are coping with the continuing outflow of patients while struggling to establish and maintain an equitable health care system. These insights can serve as potential areas of innovation to be applied here in Canada, which is another known source country for medical tourists. While aligning well with CIHR's stated global health research goals, our planning activities in Mongolia will serve to further develop our own and Canada's international leadership in this burgeoning area of scholarship.