Immigrant assimilation in health care utilisation in Spain

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Economics
• Sociology

Background:

• Limited understanding of how immigrants' healthcare utilization evolves with duration of residence, especially in universal healthcare systems.
• Existing research often focuses on static differences in healthcare consumption between foreign-born and native-born populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the dynamic process of migrant healthcare assimilation in Spain.
• To analyze how healthcare usage patterns change with time since arrival, considering period, cohort, and assimilation effects.

Main Methods:

• Utilized all available waves of the Spanish local health survey.
• Employed statistical methods to disentangle period, cohort, and assimilation effects on healthcare utilization.
• Analyzed healthcare service use, including general practitioner visits and emergency care.

Main Results:

• Found robust evidence of migrant assimilation in healthcare use, particularly for general practitioner and emergency care visits.
• Observed stronger assimilation effects among foreign-born women.
• Identified that differential aging effects contribute to the convergence of healthcare utilization patterns after 15 years of residence.

Conclusions:

• Migrant healthcare utilization patterns in Spain demonstrate assimilation over time.
• Heterogeneity in assimilation based on arrival time and region of origin highlights the need for nuanced migration assessments in welfare state financial modeling.