The congress was held from the 17th – 19th May in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, under the auspices of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), the University of Edinburgh and National Health Service Scotland in close collaboration with experts and organizations (including International Organization for Migration and World Health Organization) from other regions of the world (http://www.merhcongress.com/). The European Journal of Public Health supplement (Volume 28, Issue suppl_1, 1 May 2018) provides 9 abstracts of presentations by invited speakers, and about 33 abstracts of workshops, 279 oral and 271 poster presentations from the MERH congress.

The congress programme included accepted work of delegates from 53 countries across the globe, but only Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico and Chile represented Latin America. Marilia Mesenburg and Giovanna Gatica-Domínguez from the International Center for Equity in Health (ICEH), Pelotas, Brazil attended the MERH congress. Marilia presented their post-doctoral work titled “The role of ethnicity as determinant of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in Latin American and the Caribbean” (https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky047.064) and the poster titled “Reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health in the Haiti and Dominican Republic: the impact of migration” (https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky048.042). Giovanna was awarded with a full bursary from the MERH congress (http://www.merhcongress.com/bursaries/) to attend it and present her post-doctoral work on “Ethnic inequalities in stunting prevalence in Guatemala from 1995 to 2014” ( https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky047.066).