Health issues in newly arrived African refugees attending general practice clinics in Melbourne

Abstract

Objective: To identify the most common health issues diagnosed by general practitioners in newly arrived African refugees. Design: Descriptive study based on a purposive sample of six GPs to collate data from medical records of patients from African countries who had attended their clinics for the first time between 1 January and 30 June 2005. Setting: Two community health centres and two private general practices in metropolitan Melbourne. Participants: African refugee patients who arrived in Australia after 1 June 2004 and were seen by the six participating GPs between 1 January and 30 June 2005. Main outcome measures: Demographic characteristics, laboratory test results and final diagnoses. Results: Data were collected from 258 patient files. Most patients were from Sudan (57%) or Liberia (17%). Half were aged under 15 years. The most common health problems identified were inadequate vaccinations, nutritional deficiencies (vitamin D and iron), infectious diseases (gastrointestinal infections, schistosomiasis, and latent tuberculosis) and dental disease. Musculoskeletal, psychological and social problems were common in adults. 37% of patients were tested for latent tuberculosis, and 25% of these tested positive. Conclusions: African refugees require comprehensive health assessments for undiagnosed and untreated health problems. While most of the common diseases identified are non‐communicable, if left untreated they will affect the long‐term health and productivity of new settlers.

Prevalence of dyslipidaemia and micronutrient deficiencies among newly arrived Afghan refugees in rural Australia: a cross-sectional study

“…Severe deficiency may result in rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, and deficiency has also been associated with infectious and autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, cancer, and adverse pregnancy outcomes [30–35]. Our findings highlight the importance of regular testing for vitamin D deficiency in refugee populations, and consideration of routine Vitamin D supplementation in at risk groups [36, 37]. …”

Migration and Malaria in Europe

“…Even evidence of asymptomatic cases among immigrant children has been published. Most reported data for newly arrived SSA refugee children who present with malaria shows a prevalence of 6% to 32% with high rates of asymptomatic cases 32, 33, 34…”

Use of country of birth as an indicator of refugee background in health datasets

“…Often researchers combine humanitarian source countries into world regions for analysis [10,11,22]. Small population size or rare outcomes may sometimes necessitate this; however, when world regions are defined differently or different refugee groups are combined the findings can be difficult to compare or reproduce.…”

“…Given the diversity of Africa and Asia, these general descriptors provide insufficient information without a breakdown of included countries. Tiong et al [22] provided adequate information and combined African countries of birth into regions (Eastern, Western and Central Africa) and compared between regions, but also included the number of individuals from each country represented in the sample [22]. Other authors have reported results for one combined group but also have included the number of individuals from each country represented [24].…”