Health care utilization among immigrants and native-born populations in 11 European countries. Results from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe

Aïda Solé-Auró (), Montserrat Guillen and Eileen M. Crimmins ()
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Aïda Solé-Auró: Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona
Eileen M. Crimmins: Andrus Gerontology Center. University of Southern California

No 200920, IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics

Abstract: Objective: This study examines health care utilization of immigrants relative to the native-born populations aged 50 years and older in eleven European countries. Methods: We analyzed data from the Survey of Health Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) from 2004 for a sample of 27,444 individuals. Negative Binomial regression was conducted to examine the difference in number of doctor visits, visits to General Practitioners (GPs), and hospital stays between immigrants and the native-born. Results: We find evidence those immigrants above age 50 use health services on average more than the native-born populations with the same characteristics. Our models show immigrants have between 6% and 27% more expected visits to the doctor, GP or hospital stays when compared to native-born populations in a number of European countries. Discussion: Elderly immigrant populations might be using health services more intensively due to cultural reasons.

Keywords: count data; physician services; immigration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2009-10, Revised 2009-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eec, nep-hea and nep-mig
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http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2009/200920.pdf (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Health care utilization among immigrants and native-born populations in 11 European countries. Results from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ira:wpaper:200920

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