Variation in disease in children according to immigrant background

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Health
• Public Health
• Epidemiology

Background:

• A significant and increasing proportion of European births are to immigrant parents.
• Understanding the health of these children is crucial for public health planning and medical interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare diagnoses in secondary and tertiary healthcare between Norwegian-born children with and without immigrant backgrounds.
• To identify specific health disparities in pediatric immigrant populations.

Main Methods:

• Linked data from Norwegian health and population registries (2008-2018) for over 1 million children (0-10 years).
• Analyzed diagnostic categories in physical health (infections, non-infectious medical, non-infectious neurological conditions).
• Used Cox regression to assess hazard ratios for diagnoses by immigrant background, adjusted for sex and birth year.

Main Results:

• Children of immigrants had higher risks for certain infections, obesity, nutritional disorders, skin, blood, and genital diseases.
• Children of African immigrants showed increased risks for cerebral palsy, cerebrovascular diseases, and epilepsy.
• Conversely, immigrant children had lower risks for acute lower respiratory infections, musculoskeletal and central nervous system infections, circulatory diseases, hearing impairment, and headaches.

Conclusions:

• Children of immigrants do not exhibit overall poorer health than non-immigrant children.
• However, there are distinct variations in the distribution of health conditions among different groups of immigrant children.