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Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths

BACKGROUND: There is little verified information on the global health status of undocumented migrants (UMs). Our aim is to compare the prevalence of the main chronic diseases and of multimorbidity in undocumented migrants, documented migrants, and Spanish nationals in a Spanish autonomous community....

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Autores principales: Gimeno-Feliu, Luis Andrés, Pastor-Sanz, Marta, Poblador-Plou, Beatriz, Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia, Díaz, Esperanza, Prados-Torres, Alexandra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7336489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32631325
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01225-0
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author Gimeno-Feliu, Luis Andrés
Pastor-Sanz, Marta
Poblador-Plou, Beatriz
Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia
Díaz, Esperanza
Prados-Torres, Alexandra
author_facet Gimeno-Feliu, Luis Andrés
Pastor-Sanz, Marta
Poblador-Plou, Beatriz
Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia
Díaz, Esperanza
Prados-Torres, Alexandra
author_sort Gimeno-Feliu, Luis Andrés
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is little verified information on the global health status of undocumented migrants (UMs). Our aim is to compare the prevalence of the main chronic diseases and of multimorbidity in undocumented migrants, documented migrants, and Spanish nationals in a Spanish autonomous community. METHODS: Retrospective observational study of all users of the public health system of the region of Aragon over 1 year (2011): 930,131 Spanish nationals; 123,432 documented migrants (DMs); and 17,152 UMs. Binary logistic regression was performed to examine the association between migrant status (Spanish nationals versus DMs and UMs) and both multimorbidity and individual chronic diseases, adjusting for age and sex. RESULTS: The prevalence of individual chronic diseases in UMs was lower than in DMs and much lower than in Spanish nationals. Comparison with the corresponding group of Spanish nationals revealed odds ratios (OR) of 0.1–0.3 and 0.3–0.5 for male and female UMs, respectively (p < 0.05 in all cases). The risk of multimorbidity was lower for UMs than DMs, both for men (OR, 0.12; 95%CI 0.11–0.13 versus OR, 0.53; 95%CI 0.51–0.54) and women (OR, 0.18; 95%CI 0.16–0.20 versus OR, 0.74; 95%CI 0.72–0.75). CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of data from a health system that offers universal coverage to all immigrants, irrespective of legal status, reveals that the prevalence of chronic disease and multimorbidity is lower in UMs as compared with both DMs and Spanish nationals. These findings refute previous claims that the morbidity burden in UM populations is higher than that of the native population of the host country.
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spelling pubmed-73364892020-07-08 Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths Gimeno-Feliu, Luis Andrés Pastor-Sanz, Marta Poblador-Plou, Beatriz Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia Díaz, Esperanza Prados-Torres, Alexandra Int J Equity Health Research BACKGROUND: There is little verified information on the global health status of undocumented migrants (UMs). Our aim is to compare the prevalence of the main chronic diseases and of multimorbidity in undocumented migrants, documented migrants, and Spanish nationals in a Spanish autonomous community. METHODS: Retrospective observational study of all users of the public health system of the region of Aragon over 1 year (2011): 930,131 Spanish nationals; 123,432 documented migrants (DMs); and 17,152 UMs. Binary logistic regression was performed to examine the association between migrant status (Spanish nationals versus DMs and UMs) and both multimorbidity and individual chronic diseases, adjusting for age and sex. RESULTS: The prevalence of individual chronic diseases in UMs was lower than in DMs and much lower than in Spanish nationals. Comparison with the corresponding group of Spanish nationals revealed odds ratios (OR) of 0.1–0.3 and 0.3–0.5 for male and female UMs, respectively (p < 0.05 in all cases). The risk of multimorbidity was lower for UMs than DMs, both for men (OR, 0.12; 95%CI 0.11–0.13 versus OR, 0.53; 95%CI 0.51–0.54) and women (OR, 0.18; 95%CI 0.16–0.20 versus OR, 0.74; 95%CI 0.72–0.75). CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of data from a health system that offers universal coverage to all immigrants, irrespective of legal status, reveals that the prevalence of chronic disease and multimorbidity is lower in UMs as compared with both DMs and Spanish nationals. These findings refute previous claims that the morbidity burden in UM populations is higher than that of the native population of the host country. BioMed Central 2020-07-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7336489/ /pubmed/32631325 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01225-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 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 in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Gimeno-Feliu, Luis Andrés
Pastor-Sanz, Marta
Poblador-Plou, Beatriz
Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia
Díaz, Esperanza
Prados-Torres, Alexandra
Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths
title Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths
title_full Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths
title_fullStr Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths
title_full_unstemmed Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths
title_short Multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths
title_sort multimorbidity and chronic diseases among undocumented migrants: evidence to contradict the myths
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7336489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32631325
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01225-0
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