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Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015

During the current period of immigration to Western Europe, national healthcare systems are confronted with high numbers of asylum seekers with largely unknown health status. To improve care taking strategies, we assessed healthcare utilization in a large, representative cohort of newly arriving mig...

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Autores principales: Wetzke, Martin, Happle, Christine, Vakilzadeh, Annabelle, Ernst, Diana, Sogkas, Georgios, Schmidt, Reinhold E., Behrens, Georg M. N., Dopfer, Christian, Jablonka, Alexandra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6210699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30275412
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102163
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author Wetzke, Martin
Happle, Christine
Vakilzadeh, Annabelle
Ernst, Diana
Sogkas, Georgios
Schmidt, Reinhold E.
Behrens, Georg M. N.
Dopfer, Christian
Jablonka, Alexandra
author_facet Wetzke, Martin
Happle, Christine
Vakilzadeh, Annabelle
Ernst, Diana
Sogkas, Georgios
Schmidt, Reinhold E.
Behrens, Georg M. N.
Dopfer, Christian
Jablonka, Alexandra
author_sort Wetzke, Martin
collection PubMed
description During the current period of immigration to Western Europe, national healthcare systems are confronted with high numbers of asylum seekers with largely unknown health status. To improve care taking strategies, we assessed healthcare utilization in a large, representative cohort of newly arriving migrants consisting of n = 1533 residents of a reception center in Northern Germany in 2015. Most asylum seekers were young, male adults, and the majority came from the Eastern Mediterranean region. Overall, we observed a frequency of 0.03 visits to the onsite primary healthcare ward per asylum seeker and day of camp residence (IQR 0.0–0.07, median duration of residence 38.0 days, IQR 30.0–54.25). Female asylum seekers showed higher healthcare utilization rates than their male counterparts, and healthcare utilization was particularly low in asylum seekers in their second decade of life. Furthermore, a significant correlation between time after camp entrance and healthcare utilization behavior occurred: During the first week of camp residence, 37.1 visits/100 asylum seekers were observed, opposed to only 9.5 visits/100 asylum seekers during the sixth week of camp residence. This first data on healthcare utilization in a large, representative asylum seeker cohort entering Western Europe during the current crisis shows that primary care is most needed in the first period directly after arrival. Our dataset may help to raise awareness for refugee and migrant healthcare needs and to adapt care taking strategies accordingly.
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spelling pubmed-62106992018-11-02 Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015 Wetzke, Martin Happle, Christine Vakilzadeh, Annabelle Ernst, Diana Sogkas, Georgios Schmidt, Reinhold E. Behrens, Georg M. N. Dopfer, Christian Jablonka, Alexandra Int J Environ Res Public Health Article During the current period of immigration to Western Europe, national healthcare systems are confronted with high numbers of asylum seekers with largely unknown health status. To improve care taking strategies, we assessed healthcare utilization in a large, representative cohort of newly arriving migrants consisting of n = 1533 residents of a reception center in Northern Germany in 2015. Most asylum seekers were young, male adults, and the majority came from the Eastern Mediterranean region. Overall, we observed a frequency of 0.03 visits to the onsite primary healthcare ward per asylum seeker and day of camp residence (IQR 0.0–0.07, median duration of residence 38.0 days, IQR 30.0–54.25). Female asylum seekers showed higher healthcare utilization rates than their male counterparts, and healthcare utilization was particularly low in asylum seekers in their second decade of life. Furthermore, a significant correlation between time after camp entrance and healthcare utilization behavior occurred: During the first week of camp residence, 37.1 visits/100 asylum seekers were observed, opposed to only 9.5 visits/100 asylum seekers during the sixth week of camp residence. This first data on healthcare utilization in a large, representative asylum seeker cohort entering Western Europe during the current crisis shows that primary care is most needed in the first period directly after arrival. Our dataset may help to raise awareness for refugee and migrant healthcare needs and to adapt care taking strategies accordingly. MDPI 2018-10-01 2018-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6210699/ /pubmed/30275412 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102163 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wetzke, Martin
Happle, Christine
Vakilzadeh, Annabelle
Ernst, Diana
Sogkas, Georgios
Schmidt, Reinhold E.
Behrens, Georg M. N.
Dopfer, Christian
Jablonka, Alexandra
Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015
title Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015
title_full Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015
title_fullStr Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015
title_full_unstemmed Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015
title_short Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015
title_sort healthcare utilization in a large cohort of asylum seekers entering western europe in 2015
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6210699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30275412
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102163
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