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Migration Status and Utilization of Healthcare Services Among Venezuelan Immigrants in Peru

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Abstract

Background: In general, migrants in illegal situations encounter a greater barrier to accessing medical care because of their migration status due to not having the required documentation to be able to obtain insurance in the receiving country. Objective: To evaluate the association between migration status and the use of health services in the Venezuelan population residing in Peru. Methods: Data from the second Survey Directed to the Venezuelan Population Residing in Peru (ENPOVE) of 2022 were analyzed. The dependent variable was use of health services in the last month. The exposure variable was migration status (legal/illegal). Generalized linear models of the Poisson family with link log function were used to obtain crude and adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR), for potential confounding variables. Additionally, we evaluated the association of interest, stratified by gender. Findings: Data from 1569 migrants were analyzed. Participants with illegal migration status represented 32.4% (men: 24.3%; women: 36.7%); likewise, 58.1% did not use health services. Illegal migration status was associated with lower health care use (aPR: 0.75; 95%CI: 0.61–0.92). Likewise, after stratifying by sex, the association was maintained only in male migrants (aPR: 0.53; 95%CI: 0.39–0.82) but not in women (aPR: 0.84; 95%CI: 0.67–1.05). Conclusion: 58.1% of Venezuelan migrants in Peru did not seek medical attention despite having health problems. Having an illegal immigration status leads to a lower probability of using these services, especially in men.

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Data Availability

The data underlying this article are available the INEI microdata repository: https://proyectos.inei.gob.pe/microdatos/.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Donna Pringle for reviewing the language and style of the manuscript.

Funding

Self-financed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Excelencia en Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales en Salud, Vicerrectorado de Investigación, Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola, 550 La Fontana Ave, La Molina, 15024, Peru

    Akram Hernández-Vásquez

  2. Vicerrectorado de Investigación, Universidad Privada Norbert Wiener, Lima, Peru

    Guido Bendezu-Quispe

  3. Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Peru

    Diego Azañedo

Authors
  1. Akram Hernández-Vásquez
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  2. Guido Bendezu-Quispe
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  3. Diego Azañedo
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Contributions

Akram Hernández-Vásquez: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing—original draft; Writing—review & editing. Guido Bendezu-Quispe: Investigation; Validation; Writing—original draft; Writing—review & editing. Diego Azañedo: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing—original draft; Writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Akram Hernández-Vásquez.

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The present study did not require the approval of an ethics committee because it uses data that are in the public domain, in which surveyed participants cannot be identified (http://iinei.inei.gob.pe/microdatos/).

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Hernández-Vásquez, A., Bendezu-Quispe, G. & Azañedo, D. Migration Status and Utilization of Healthcare Services Among Venezuelan Immigrants in Peru. J Community Health 48, 1031–1037 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-023-01276-8

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