Health status of recently arrived asylum seekers in their host country: results of a cross-sectional observational study

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO) considers that the heterogeneity of concepts and definitions of migrants is an obstacle to obtaining evidence to inform public health policies. There is no recent data on the health status of only asylum seekers who have recently arrived in their Western host country. The purpose of this study was to determine the health status of asylum seekers and search for explanatory factors for this health status. METHODS: This cross-sectional observational study screened the mental and somatic health of adult asylum seekers who had arrived in France within the past 21 days and went to the Marseille single center between March 1 and August 31, 2021. In order to study the explanatory factors of the asylum seekers' health status, a multivariate analysis was performed using a logistic regression model to predict the health status. Factors taken into account were those significantly associated with outcome (level < 0.05) in univariate analysis. RESULTS: In total, 419 asylum seekers were included and 96% CI95%[93;97.3] had at least one health disorder. Concerning mental health, 89% CI95% [85.1;91.4] had a mental disorder and in terms of somatic health exclusively, 66% CI95% [61.4;70.6] had at least one somatic disorder. Women were more likely to have a somatic disease OR = 1.80 [1.07; 3.05]. We found a statistically significant association between the presence of at least one disorder and sleeping in a public space OR = 3.4 [1.02;11.28] p = 0.046. This association is also found for mental disorders OR = 2.36 [1.16;4.84], p = 0.018. CONCLUSIONS: Due to the high prevalence of health disorders our study found, asylum seekers are a population with many care needs when they arrive in their host country. The main factors linked to a poor health status seem to be related to a person’s sex, geographical origin and sleeping in a public space.