Is the European refugee crisis a potential threat to public health? Evidence from Italy

Jay Bhattacharya and Giorgia Marini

International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics, 2024, vol. 14, issue 2, 172-196

Abstract: We examine the impact of both disembarkations (the raw number of disembarked people) and integrated refugees (the number of disembarked people identified as asylum seekers and integrated in the country) on a broad set of infectious diseases and healthcare expenditure, respectively on a panel of 23 (1998-2020) and 14 years (2005-2018) for 20 Italian regions. We find a statistically significant and clinically meaningful correlation between refugee influx (measured as the number of disembarked people) and some diseases. These results pose some important questions on screening and prevention, costs associated with them and changes to the local epidemiology. Moreover, as regions with higher refugee influx experienced higher healthcare expenditure in the year the refugee influx occurred, a sustained refugee influx may have an impact on healthcare costs, which may raise a problem of sustainability of the national healthcare system.

Keywords: refugees; infectious diseases; healthcare expenditure; public health; Italy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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