Abstract
Based on the 2009 Thematic Household Survey in Hong Kong, this study compared health status and utilization of health care services in Hong Kong between migrants from Mainland China and natives. Overall, Mainland migrants reported lower socioeconomic conditions, worse health status, and less health care services utilization than the natives. After controlling for socio-demographic factors, we found that the migrants were 1.2 times more likely to report fair or poor health and 0.78 times less likely to report having a usual source of care, compared with the natives. Mainland migrants also had fewer physician visits and relied more on the public sector. Within the migrant group, those who had language advantage had more visits, and the recent arrivals who stayed in Hong Kong for three years or less had fewer visits and were far less likely to have a usual source of care. The findings underscore migration as an important social determinant of health in Hong Kong. A combination of targeted social and health policies is needed to help Mainland migrants better integrate into society and to improve their access to care. Programs should be tailored to address varying needs from different subgroups among migrants.
Highlights
Migrant health has become a growing field of research in recent years [1,2,3,4,5]
China relaxing its border controls. This group of migrants was eventually granted legal residence by the Hong Kong government [19]. As these new immigrants became more successful, they returned to Mainland to find wives, which would explain why many of the one-way permits (OWP) issued in late 1980s and the 1990s were for family reunification purposes
We found that the age-sex adjusted odds of self-reporting fair/poor health were almost 1.5 times higher among Mainland migrants compared with Hong Kong natives
Summary
Migrant health has become a growing field of research in recent years [1,2,3,4,5]. It is well-recognized that migration is an important social determinant of health [6,7,8]. A growing body of literature has reported newly arrived migrants in better health than natives, but this migrant health advantage eventually deteriorates over time [9]. This group of migrants was eventually granted legal residence by the Hong Kong government [19]. As these new immigrants became more successful, they returned to Mainland to find wives, which would explain why many of the one-way permits (OWP) issued in late 1980s and the 1990s were for family reunification purposes. Government statistics show that most OWP were issued to “mostly dependent women with few marketable skills and burdened by young children” who had married Hong
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