THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISABILITY AND MIGRATION STATUS IN CHILE- PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS FROM REPEATED CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY
Author(s)
Cabieses B, Delgado I, Bernales M, Obach A
Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
OBJECTIVES: Disability in Chile is a growing public health problem that causes deterioration of individual wellbeing, family burden and premature mortality. The distribution of disability among immigrants has been under-researched. The objective was to explore crude and adjusted associations between total disability and immigration status (immigrant versus Chile) in Chile between 2006 and 2009. METHODS: Exploratory secondary analysis of nationally representative, anonymous survey CASEN 2006 and 2009 (n2006 = 268 873; n2009 = 246 924 participants). The relationship between self-reported total disability (dependent variable) and immigration status (independent variable) was modeled using weighted logistic regression. Adjustment variables were demographics (DG: age, sex, ethnicity, region, rural/urban residence, marital status) socioeconomic status (SES: household income and education). Analysis was conducted in STATA 13. RESULTS: Self-reported prevalence of disability in Chile, according to CASEN 2006 and 2009, was 6.9% and 7.6%, respectively; more prevalent in women than men and with a clear inverse gradient according to income (4.8% richest quintile versus 9.6% poorest quintile). Immigration in Chile increased from 1% to 1.3%. Multivariate analysis indicated that the total population of immigrants have a lower chance of reporting disability (OR=0.49; 95%C=0.37-0.66), even after adjusting for DG. However, this protection disappeared after adjusting for SES (OR=0.75; 95% CI=0.45-1.25). These results did not change significantly between 2006 and 2009. CONCLUSIONS: We found a healthy migrant effect on the total population, which disappears after adjusting for socioeconomic variables. More robust analysis needs to be conducted to test these findings, ideally with longitudinal data. This is an urgent global health matter.
Conference/Value in Health Info
2015-05, ISPOR 2015, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Value in Health, Vol. 18, No. 3 (May 2015)
Code
PHP161
Topic
Epidemiology & Public Health
Topic Subcategory
Public Health
Disease
Multiple Diseases