This paper analyses a group of interviews with nepalese women who are immigrants in Lisbon, Portugal. It sets forward preliminary results regarding different aspects of their integration process and the health challenges faced by them. While the health system can be considered a part of structural integration, health issues of women seem interconnected with all types of integration, as proposed by Heckmann (2006) and applied by Bajracharya (2015) to nepalis in Lisbon: cultural, interactive, structural and identificational integration. Health challenges are also partially mediated by personal and sociocultural factors such as visible caste dynamics (interfering with gender roles and marriages), ethnic background and regions of origin of the nepali immigrants. In particular, I will analyze the ways how health needs of nepali females interact with different types of integration. And I will compare my results concerning their integration process with the ones obtained by Miradouro Branco (2012) and Bajracharya (2015), while doing fieldwork on that same community. Finally, I will discuss the pertinence of facing health challenges as an important indicator, while assessing female immigrants' integration.

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