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Updated: Aug 26, 2025

Author Spotlight: Advancing Pathogen Diagnostics with Standardized LAMP
Published on: September 8, 2023
Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Colombia using
Phuong N Pham1,2,3, Katrina Keegan3, Lisa Grazina Johnston4
1Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA ppham@hsph.harvard.edu.
Objectives:
To determine factors associated with adherence to COVID-19 mitigation measures, related symptoms and testing, as well as pandemic-related income loss among Venezuelan refugee and migrant adults in urban and border areas of Colombia.
Design:
Phone-based respondent-driven sampling SETTING: Bogotá and Norte de Santander, Colombia.
Participants:
605 adult Venezuelan refugees and migrants residing in Bogotá (n=305) and Norte de Santander (n=300), who arrived in Colombia after 2014 and completed the survey in August and September 2020.
Primary And Secondary Outcome Measures:
Full COVID-19 compliance (vs incomplete or no compliance), any COVID-19-related symptoms (vs none) and income loss due to isolation measures in Colombia (vs no income change or increase in income).
Results:
Older age was associated with lower odds of compliance with physical distancing measures (0.94, 0.90-0.99; p=0.01) for those in Bogotá. Nearly 15% of refugees and migrants in both locations (81 of 605) experienced at least one symptom consistent with COVID-19. Having a health condition was associated with higher odds of experiencing COVID-19-related symptoms in Bogotá (4.00, 1.22-13.06; p=0.02) and Norte de Santander (6.99, 1.95-24.99; p=0.003). Around 8% in both locations (48 of 605) were tested for COVID-19. Around 90% in both locations (537 of 605) had trouble earning an income after the introduction of isolation measures, and the median reported monthly income decreased by half in Bogotá and by 30% in Norte de Santander. A higher level of education (3.46, 1.02-11.75; p=0.05) was associated with higher odds of income loss among participants in Norte de Santander.
Conclusions:
Results indicate high compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures, low testing rates and high pandemic-related income loss among Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Colombia. This study provides insights into a hard-to-reach refugee and migrant population in Colombia; additional study on the effects of the pandemic on hidden populations is warranted.
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