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Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: China is experiencing a sizeable rural-urban flow, which may influence the health of internal migrant youth deeply. Disadvantages in the city are highly likely to contribute to health issues among the young internal migrant population. The current qualitative study is to explore how inte...

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Autores principales: Yu, Chunyan, Lou, Chaohua, Cheng, Yan, Cui, Yuanqi, Lian, Qiguo, Wang, Ziliang, Gao, Ersheng, Wang, Ling
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6431074/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30902080
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6661-0
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author Yu, Chunyan
Lou, Chaohua
Cheng, Yan
Cui, Yuanqi
Lian, Qiguo
Wang, Ziliang
Gao, Ersheng
Wang, Ling
author_facet Yu, Chunyan
Lou, Chaohua
Cheng, Yan
Cui, Yuanqi
Lian, Qiguo
Wang, Ziliang
Gao, Ersheng
Wang, Ling
author_sort Yu, Chunyan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: China is experiencing a sizeable rural-urban flow, which may influence the health of internal migrant youth deeply. Disadvantages in the city are highly likely to contribute to health issues among the young internal migrant population. The current qualitative study is to explore how internal migrant young people view the health issues they face, and the services and opportunities they could seek in their host community. METHODS: Data were collected from 90 internal migrant youth aged between 15 and 19 years old and 20 adult service providers who worked with them in a community of Shanghai, where the population of internal migrants was relatively large. Four types of qualitative research methods were used, including key informant interviews with adults, in-depth interviews with adolescents, a photovoice activity with adolescents and community mapping & focus group discussions with adolescents. Guided by the ecological systems framework and the acculturation theory, thematic analysis was conducted using ATLAS.Ti 7.0 software. RESULTS: While younger migrants had a limited understanding of health, elder migrant youths were more sensitive to societal and political factors related to their health. Mental health and health risk behaviors such as smoking, violence and premarital unsafe sex were thought as major health issues. Internal migrant youths rarely seek health information and services initiatively from formal sources. They believed their health concerns weren’t as pressing as the pressure coming from the high cost of living, the experience of being unfairly treated and the lack of opportunities. Participants also cited lack of family and social support, lack of awareness and supportive policies to get access to community and public services as impacting health factors. CONCLUSIONS: The study’s findings provide the insight to the social contexts which influence the health experience, health seeking behaviors, and city adaptation of young internal migrants in their host community. This research stresses the importance of understanding social networks and structural barriers faced by migrant youth in vulnerable environments. A multidimensional social support is essential for internal migrant youth facing present and potential health risks. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-6661-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-64310742019-04-04 Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study Yu, Chunyan Lou, Chaohua Cheng, Yan Cui, Yuanqi Lian, Qiguo Wang, Ziliang Gao, Ersheng Wang, Ling BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: China is experiencing a sizeable rural-urban flow, which may influence the health of internal migrant youth deeply. Disadvantages in the city are highly likely to contribute to health issues among the young internal migrant population. The current qualitative study is to explore how internal migrant young people view the health issues they face, and the services and opportunities they could seek in their host community. METHODS: Data were collected from 90 internal migrant youth aged between 15 and 19 years old and 20 adult service providers who worked with them in a community of Shanghai, where the population of internal migrants was relatively large. Four types of qualitative research methods were used, including key informant interviews with adults, in-depth interviews with adolescents, a photovoice activity with adolescents and community mapping & focus group discussions with adolescents. Guided by the ecological systems framework and the acculturation theory, thematic analysis was conducted using ATLAS.Ti 7.0 software. RESULTS: While younger migrants had a limited understanding of health, elder migrant youths were more sensitive to societal and political factors related to their health. Mental health and health risk behaviors such as smoking, violence and premarital unsafe sex were thought as major health issues. Internal migrant youths rarely seek health information and services initiatively from formal sources. They believed their health concerns weren’t as pressing as the pressure coming from the high cost of living, the experience of being unfairly treated and the lack of opportunities. Participants also cited lack of family and social support, lack of awareness and supportive policies to get access to community and public services as impacting health factors. CONCLUSIONS: The study’s findings provide the insight to the social contexts which influence the health experience, health seeking behaviors, and city adaptation of young internal migrants in their host community. This research stresses the importance of understanding social networks and structural barriers faced by migrant youth in vulnerable environments. A multidimensional social support is essential for internal migrant youth facing present and potential health risks. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-6661-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC6431074/ /pubmed/30902080 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6661-0 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This 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 Research Article
Yu, Chunyan
Lou, Chaohua
Cheng, Yan
Cui, Yuanqi
Lian, Qiguo
Wang, Ziliang
Gao, Ersheng
Wang, Ling
Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study
title Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study
title_full Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study
title_short Young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in Shanghai, China: a qualitative study
title_sort young internal migrants’ major health issues and health seeking barriers in shanghai, china: a qualitative study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6431074/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30902080
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6661-0
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