BACKGROUND The healthcare of immigrants is an important aspect of equity of care provision. Understanding how immigrants use the healthcare services based on their needs is crucial to establish effective health policy. METHODS This retrospective, observational study included the total population of Aragon, Spain (1,251,540 individuals, of whom 11.9 % were immigrants). Patient-level data on th...

BACKGROUND Immigrants typically arrive in good health. This health benefit can decline as immigrants adopt behaviours similar to native-born populations. Risk of injury is low in immigrants but it is not known whether this changes with increasing time since migration. We sought to examine the association between duration of residence in Canada and risk of unintentional injury. METHODS Populat...

Poverty in the United States declined slightly between 1970 and 2005 (Figure 1).2 Declines were notable for the native-born, whereas poverty among immigrants increased. Although the poverty rate of immigrants from many regions has declined, the distribution of the U.S. immigrant population by origin has shifted decisively towards source countries that generate immigrants who are more likely to ...

BACKGROUND In the United States, an increasingly disproportionate burden of tuberculosis among the foreign-born population has led to calls for improvements in the detection and treatment of latent infection in new immigrants. Current treatment guidelines do not take into account global differences in drug-resistance patterns or their implications for the treatment of immigrants. The use of mul...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of obesity, as well as use of bariatric surgery, has increased worldwide. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential differences in the use of bariatric surgery among Swedes and immigrants in Sweden and whether the hypothesized differences remain after adjustment for socioeconomic factors. METHODS A closed cohort of all individuals aged 20-64 years...

OBJECTIVES The prevalence of allergic conditions has been increasing worldwide, with the highest rates seen in Western countries like Canada. The development of allergies is known to be related to both genetic and environmental factors, but the causal pathways remain unclear. Studies on immigrants provide a unique opportunity to disentangle these two factors and provide a better understanding o...

BACKGROUND: Migrants from Eastern Europe constitute more than 5% of Germany's population. Since population health in their countries of origin is poor their health status upon arrival may be worse than that of the native-born German population (hypothesis H1). As a minority, they may be socio-economically disadvantaged (H2), and their health status may deteriorate quickly (H3). METHODS: We comp...

Whether immigrants are positively or negatively self-selected is much disputed. Whereas most previous studies have addressed this question by comparing the wages of immigrants to those of U.S. natives, this analysis uses occupation to examine the skill level of immigrants. Data on the occupational distribution of individuals granted legal permanent residence in 1995 indicate that the proportion...