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Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective

Population aging and the associated changes in demographic structures and healthcare needs is a key challenge across Europe. Healthy aging strategies focus on ensuring the ability to maintain health, quality of life and independent living at old age. Concurrent to the process of population aging, th...

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Autores principales: Kristiansen, Maria, Razum, Oliver, Tezcan-Güntekin, Hürrem, Krasnik, Allan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5809957/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29450062
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40985-016-0036-1
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author Kristiansen, Maria
Razum, Oliver
Tezcan-Güntekin, Hürrem
Krasnik, Allan
author_facet Kristiansen, Maria
Razum, Oliver
Tezcan-Güntekin, Hürrem
Krasnik, Allan
author_sort Kristiansen, Maria
collection PubMed
description Population aging and the associated changes in demographic structures and healthcare needs is a key challenge across Europe. Healthy aging strategies focus on ensuring the ability to maintain health, quality of life and independent living at old age. Concurrent to the process of population aging, the demographics of Europe are affected by increased migration resulting in substantial ethnic diversity. In this paper, we narratively review the health profile of the growing proportion of aging migrants in Europe, outline key factors shaping health among this diverse group and consider ways of addressing their healthcare needs. Although factors shaping aging processes are largely similar across populations, migrant-specific risk factors exist. These include exposure to health risks before and during migration; a more disadvantaged socioeconomic position; language barriers and low health literacy; cultural factors influencing health-seeking behaviours; and psychosocial vulnerability and discrimination affecting health and quality of life. Overall, migrants experience the same morbidity and mortality causes as the native populations, but with different relative importance, severity and age of onset and with substantial differences within and between migrant groups. Little is known regarding health behaviours among aging migrants, although differences in cancer screening behaviours have been identified. Indications of widening health differentials between migrants and native populations with age and informal barriers to quality healthcare for aging migrants are causes of concern. In conclusion, there is a need for attention to migration alongside other determinants of healthy aging. The diversity in individual characteristics, life course processes and contextual factors shaping aging processes among migrants point to the need for a sensitive and comprehensive approach to policies, practices and research within the field of healthy aging. This is important to accommodate for the needs of the growing number of aging migrants in Europe and counter inequities in health and well-being at old age.
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spelling pubmed-58099572018-02-15 Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective Kristiansen, Maria Razum, Oliver Tezcan-Güntekin, Hürrem Krasnik, Allan Public Health Rev Review Population aging and the associated changes in demographic structures and healthcare needs is a key challenge across Europe. Healthy aging strategies focus on ensuring the ability to maintain health, quality of life and independent living at old age. Concurrent to the process of population aging, the demographics of Europe are affected by increased migration resulting in substantial ethnic diversity. In this paper, we narratively review the health profile of the growing proportion of aging migrants in Europe, outline key factors shaping health among this diverse group and consider ways of addressing their healthcare needs. Although factors shaping aging processes are largely similar across populations, migrant-specific risk factors exist. These include exposure to health risks before and during migration; a more disadvantaged socioeconomic position; language barriers and low health literacy; cultural factors influencing health-seeking behaviours; and psychosocial vulnerability and discrimination affecting health and quality of life. Overall, migrants experience the same morbidity and mortality causes as the native populations, but with different relative importance, severity and age of onset and with substantial differences within and between migrant groups. Little is known regarding health behaviours among aging migrants, although differences in cancer screening behaviours have been identified. Indications of widening health differentials between migrants and native populations with age and informal barriers to quality healthcare for aging migrants are causes of concern. In conclusion, there is a need for attention to migration alongside other determinants of healthy aging. The diversity in individual characteristics, life course processes and contextual factors shaping aging processes among migrants point to the need for a sensitive and comprehensive approach to policies, practices and research within the field of healthy aging. This is important to accommodate for the needs of the growing number of aging migrants in Europe and counter inequities in health and well-being at old age. BioMed Central 2016-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC5809957/ /pubmed/29450062 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40985-016-0036-1 Text en © The Author(s). 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Review
Kristiansen, Maria
Razum, Oliver
Tezcan-Güntekin, Hürrem
Krasnik, Allan
Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective
title Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective
title_full Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective
title_fullStr Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective
title_full_unstemmed Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective
title_short Aging and health among migrants in a European perspective
title_sort aging and health among migrants in a european perspective
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5809957/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29450062
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40985-016-0036-1
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