Hospital admissions of refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants: Ten-year retrospective study

The worldwide population of forcibly displaced people has increased over the past decade, approaching 80 million and encompassing more than 30 million refugees and asylum seekers. Research into refugee and migrant health has remained scarce, however.

To investigate the reasons for hospital admissions of refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants, we collected medical data from Helsinki University Hospital (HUH) records 2010-20.

The study population consisted of 647 patients originally from 54 different countries, mainly Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Among adults, 40.9% of the admissions were related to pregnancy. For minors, the group comprising congenital malformations, deformations, and chromosomal abnormalities accounted for most hospitalizations, followed by diseases of the digestive or nervous system. Every fifth patient (19.3%) was admitted because of an infection: adults mostly for urinary tract infection (16.3%), pneumonia (14.1%), and tuberculosis (9.8%), and minors for acute gastroenteritis (15.2%). Infectious reason was more frequent within two months after immigration than later.

Our data reveal a unique admission profile for forced migrants: in addition to infectious diseases, a particularly high rate of obstetric diagnoses was recorded, the two ranking as the most common reasons for hospitalization.