Health care in country of origin

Health care in country of origin

LASA filenames:
LASMB068

Contact: Marjolein Broese van Groenou

Background
Many ethnic minority citizens use types of medical care in their country of origin, as reported by studies from the USA, New Zealand and Denmark (Şekercan et al, 2014). The use of medical care in their country of origin is generally related to their health status and to their opinions regarding services in the countries of residence and origin (Şekercan et al, 2014). In LASA, the migrant cohort has also been asked to report on the use of five types of medical care during their stay in the country of origin. Moreover, respondents who did use medical care in their country of origin were asked to indicate the reason(s) for use. Together with their use of care and services in the Netherlands (033, 044, 045), this provide a more complete picture of health care use by migrant older adults.

Measurement instruments in LASA

Use of medical care during stay in country of origin
Respondents are provided with a list of five types of medical care (e.g. pharmacist, physician or specialist, dentist,) and were asked whether they had used these in the past year. The six options are categorized in the variables bmcarc1 to bmcarc6:

1. pharmacy
2. physician or specialist
3. hospital or health centre
4. dentist
5. alternative or traditional healer (like fikh */ imam)
6. other

*  According to Islamic law

Reasons for medical care use
If respondents had used one or more types of medical care, the respondent was asked to provide a reason for using care in their country of origin. They could choose multiple reasons out of a list of ten. The ten options are categorized in the variables bmcarr01 to bmcarr10. The options were:

1. new complaint / sickness during stay
2. dissatisfaction about care in the Netherlands
3. severity of the complaint during stay
4. severity of the complaint during stay
5. periodic consultation / health check
6. to buy medicines not prescribed in the Netherlands
7. to buy medicines not available in the Netherlands
8. cheaper in country of origin
9. because of the waiting lists in the Netherlands
10. other

Questionnaires
LASMB068 (main interview, module ZB, in Dutch)

Variable information
LASMB068
(pdf)

Availability of information per wave ¹

¹ More information about the LASA data collection waves is available here.

* 2B=baseline second cohort;
3B=baseline third cohort;
MB=migrants: baseline first cohort

Ma=data collected in main interview

Reference

1. Şekercan, A., Lamkaddem, M., Snijder, M. B., Peters, R. J., & Essink-Bot, M. L. (2014). Healthcare consumption by ethnic minority people in their country of origin. The European Journal of Public Health, 25(3), 384-390.

Date of last update: January, 2018 (first version)