Monitoring migrant health in Europe: A narrative review of data collection practices

Abstract

Many EU countries need to step up their organizational and regulatory efforts to monitor migrant health if the current lack of data on migrant health should be overcome. This could be done through the inclusion of improved questions on migration in existing data collection processes.

Inferior health-related quality of life and psychological well-being in immigrant cancer survivors: A population-based study

“…Future research needs to address cancer patients' reported outcomes during the active treatment phase, to explore strengths as well as challenges of immigrancy, and to evaluate interventions to reduce disparities. Recently, Rechel et al 35 surveyed European cancer registries regarding current data collection systems in the European Union (EU) that allow the monitoring of migrant health. They found that registry data on health care utilization by migrant status was available in only 11 of 27 member states and that few countries collect large-scale survey data on migrant health and health care utilization.…”

New times for migrants' health in Europe

“…However, countries in the European Union (EU) differ with regard to categorization and definitions of migrants; this is mainly due to different historical contexts, statistical traditions, administrative and political structures, welfare regimes and migration histories 11 . The United Nations (UN) has defined a migrant as any person who lives temporarily or permanently in a country where the individual was not born 12 , whereas Eurostat defines a migrant as a person who establishes his/her usual place of residence in the destination country for 12 months or more 13 .…”

“…Commonly used definitions of migrant status do not distinguish between sub-categories of migrants, and for instance, second and third generation migrants that face particular health problems are often excluded from national monitoring systems, ruling out this variation in migrant health in the data analysis 11 . Another data limitation is that the focus on migrant's health has been mainly on communicable diseases, and research on social determinants of health while entitlements to health care, specific interventions, and accessibility and quality of care is still scarce 11 .…”

“…Commonly used definitions of migrant status do not distinguish between sub-categories of migrants, and for instance, second and third generation migrants that face particular health problems are often excluded from national monitoring systems, ruling out this variation in migrant health in the data analysis 11 . Another data limitation is that the focus on migrant's health has been mainly on communicable diseases, and research on social determinants of health while entitlements to health care, specific interventions, and accessibility and quality of care is still scarce 11 . Finally, another common limitation in migrant health data collection is the unknown denominator (the size of the underlying population), due to the presence of undocumented migrants, the lack of notification to the public registers when leaving one country of residence, or even sometimes when this information is available, is not properly adjusted 11 .…”

“…Another data limitation is that the focus on migrant's health has been mainly on communicable diseases, and research on social determinants of health while entitlements to health care, specific interventions, and accessibility and quality of care is still scarce 11 . Finally, another common limitation in migrant health data collection is the unknown denominator (the size of the underlying population), due to the presence of undocumented migrants, the lack of notification to the public registers when leaving one country of residence, or even sometimes when this information is available, is not properly adjusted 11 .…”