Abstract
In Taiwan, migrants come mostly for marriage and work. Several researchers have conducted health-related studies of marital migrants and migrant workers, but the access of the two groups to healthcare has not been studied. Therefore, our study investigated the factors associated with migrants’ access to healthcare, with the main foci being marital migrants and migrant workers in Taiwan. A structured and cross-sectional questionnaire was anonymously self-administered by migrants recruited to participate in this survey on a voluntary basis from 11 medical centers and 11 migrant-helping associations in Taiwan between May 1st and September 21st, 2018. A total of 753 questionnaires were analyzed. The majority of marital migrants (n = 243) and migrant workers (n = 449) surveyed were enrolled in Taiwan’s National Health Insurance system (92.7 vs. 93.5%, p = 0.68). More of the migrant workers (n = 205) than the marital migrants (n = 42) encountered language barriers while seeking medical services (48.0 vs. 17.1%, p < 0.001). A professional interpreter at the point of care was considered important by more of the migrant workers (n = 316) than the marital migrants (n = 89) (70.2 vs. 39.6%, p < 0.001). Although more than 90% of the surveyed migrants were enrolled in the health insurance system in Taiwan, many, especially among the migrant workers, still faced language barriers while seeking medical services.
Highlights
The population of international migrants increased from 77 million in 2000 to 244 million in2015, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has come to view migrants’ health as an issue of gradually increasing importance [1]
The questionnaire was first written in Chinese with Mandarin phonetic symbols and translated by professional translators into Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Thai, to promote migrants who natively spoke the three languages to participate in the study because it was supposed that many of them might have problems related with access to healthcare in Taiwan where Chinese and English are the two languages mostly spoken in medical settings
The percentage of marital migrants who had lived in Taiwan less than three years is smaller than that of migrant workers (10.8 vs. 51.6%; p < 0.0167)
Summary
The population of international migrants increased from 77 million in 2000 to 244 million in2015, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has come to view migrants’ health as an issue of gradually increasing importance [1]. Public Health 2019, 16, 2830; doi:10.3390/ijerph16162830 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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