Barriers and facilitators to health care access for migrant children in Canada: A scoping review

Abstract

Problem: Migrant children face numerous challenges when settling in their new home. One of the challenges that exists is difficulties accessing health care, with many barriers existing and few facilitators to ease access. The goal of this paper is to analyze previous literature related to migrants' access to access to health care in Canada to better understand the barriers they face, and the factors that help them access services, or the facilitators.

Eligibility criteria: Arksey and O'Malley's stages in scoping reviews was employed to search CINAHL, PubMed, Sociological Abstract, SocIndex, Scopus, Cochrane Library, Ovid MEDLINE(R), and Ovid Embase from 1997 to February 2020.

Sample: A total of 26 Canadian studies met the inclusion criteria.

Results: The review revealed the following barriers: language and culture barriers, low socioeconomic status, lack of health insurance, transportation, shortage of social support, lack of knowledge, fear of service providers/authorities, and discrimination. The facilitators for accessing health care for this population included outreach, benefit and assistance programs, cultural training, strengthening education, and various services.

Conclusion: The abundance of barriers to health care access and the existence of few facilitators may worsen migrant children's health, however further research is required to understand the impact.

Implication: There is a need to increase the understanding of migrant children's experiences with accessing health care services in order to inform policy, educate providers, and improve access and health outcomes.

Keywords: Barriers to access; Children and adolescents; Facilitators to access; Health care access; Migrants.