Migration and integration: the case of health literacy (HLS-EU-PT) as a foundation to promote cultural sensitiveness

Abstract

Abstract Background Portugal has experienced trough-out his recent history successive migration patterns. Lately, with instability in Syria and the Mediterranean routes of migration between Africa and Europe, new challenges have emerged. One of them is related to migrants’ health and their navigation of health care system. In order to better understand cultural patterns of migrants, this research aims to explore their health literacy (HL) in the context of the European Health Literacy Survey framework (HLS-EU). Methods A total of 748 participants from the different offices of a company in the financial sector (Portugal, main land and autonomous territories) participated in a cross sectional survey (CAWI). Age ranged from 25 to 65 years and HL was measured using the HLS-EU instrument validated to Portuguese (HLS-EU-PT). Each participant was allocated to one of the groups, either of satisfactory HL (when scores ≥30) or insufficient HL (when scores <30). In order to access the migrant condition, a proxy variable considered the participant’s parents origin: at least one of the parents was born in a foreign country. Results Out of the 748 participants, 4.1% (n = 31) were considered migrants. Of the migrant participants, 6.9% have inadequate, 51.7% problematic, 24.1% sufficient and 17.2% excellent HL (HLS-EU-PT). Migrants have lower levels of HL when compared with nationals in this sample (respectively 58.6% and 45.8% for insufficient HL) but this difference is not statistically significant. Conclusions Although results didn’t show an association between being migrant and lower levels of HL (when compared with nationals), it is nevertheless relevant to consider that more than 1 in every two migrants (58.6%) have insufficient HL levels. Special consideration should be given to this group to promote HL levels and further research is needed to better understand how HL and cultural sensitiveness may work for a better integration of migrants.