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. 2021 Mar 31;6(1):7-29.
doi: 10.25646/7863. eCollection 2021 Mar.

Monitoring the health and healthcare provision for refugees in collective accommodation centres: Results of the population-based survey RESPOND

Louise Biddle  1   2 , Maren Hintermeier  1 , Amir Mohsenpour  2 , Matthias Sand  3 , Kayvan Bozorgmehr  1   2
Affiliations

Monitoring the health and healthcare provision for refugees in collective accommodation centres: Results of the population-based survey RESPOND

Louise Biddle et al. J Health Monit. .

Abstract

To date, the integration of refugees in German health surveys is insufficient. The survey RESPOND (Improving regional health system responses to the challenges of forced migration) aimed to collect valid epidemiological data on refugee health status and healthcare provision. The core elements of the survey consisted of a population-based sampling procedure in Baden-Württemberg, multilingual questionnaires and a face-to-face approach of recruitment and data collection in collective accommodation centres with multilingual field teams. In addition, data on the geographical locations of accommodation centres and their structural quality were obtained. The results indicate a high overall health burden. The prevalence of depression (44.3%) and anxiety symptoms (43.0%) was high. At the same time, high unmet needs were reported for primary (30.5%) and specialist (30.9%) care. Despite sufficient geographical accessibility of primary care services, frequent ambulatory care sensitive hospitalisations, i.e. hospitalisations that could potentially have been avoided through primary care (25.3%), as well as subjective deficits in the quality of care, suggest barriers to accessing healthcare services. Almost half of all refugees (45.3%) live in accommodation facilities of poor structural quality. Collecting valid data on the health situation of refugees is possible through a combination of targeted sampling, multilingual recruitment and survey instruments as well as personal recruitment. The presented approach could complement established procedures for conducting health surveys and be extended to other federal states.

Keywords: ACCESS BARRIERS; HEALTH MONITORING; QUALITY OF CARE; REFUGEES; SURVEY.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Annex Figure 1
Annex Figure 1
Response rate calculated according to AAPOR criteria Source: RESPOND Study 2018
Figure 1
Figure 1
Self-reported, weighted prevalence of health issues and symptoms by gender (with 95% confidence intervals) Source: RESPOND Study 2018
Figure 2
Figure 2
Self-reported, weighted utilisation and quality of health services by gender (with 95% confidence intervals) Source: RESPOND Study 2018
Figure 3
Figure 3
Quality of care perceived as good or very good (responsiveness) by type of accommodation (weighted, with 95% confidence intervals) Source: RESPOND Study 2018
Figure 4
Figure 4
Distance to pharmacies, general practitioners, specialists and hospitals perceived as ‘close enough’ by type of accommodation (weighted, with 95% confidence intervals) Source: RESPOND Study 2018
Figure 5
Figure 5
Travel time (in minutes) to the nearest primary care practice per accommodation and mean travel time per district by car, on foot and by local public transport Source: RESPOND Study 2018
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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