The Utilisation of Preventive Health Services among Migrants in Italy

Abstract

Access to and utilization of preventive health services are diversely distributed among immigrants. This paper aims to test the impact of structural, socio-economic, cultural, and contextual factors, and to test whether the acculturation theory holds true for migrants in Italy. Based on the “Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens” survey (2011–2012), this paper shows that utilization of preventive health services among immigrants depends on structural characteristics and highlights the relevance of social interactions between foreigners and natives. Finally, the paper concludes that the acculturation model holds true for immigrants in Italy.

Keywords:

• Preventive health services
• acculturation
• discrimination
• communication
• health prevention measures

Disclosure statement

The authors confirm that there are no financial or non-financial competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 The indicator is the sum of the following scores: Citizenship (“0”=no desire; “1”=only desire; “2”=having Italian citizenship) + Feeling at home (“−1”= little or not at all; “+1”=enough or a lot) + Italian cuisine (“−1”=little or not at all; “+1”=enough or a lot) + Italian licence (“0”=no; “1”=yes)

2 Indeed, although all documented migrants are entitled to have a family doctor, they have to register their choice at the health district of residence, and it happens that someone has not done the registration yet, because he is changing residence (migrants’ residence mobility is high), or because he simply does not know that he has to do it.

3 In Italy, the jurisdiction on health is entrusted to the regional governments (L.C. 3/2001).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry for University and Research under Grant PRIN 2017 ‘Immigration, integration, settlement. Italian-Style’