A Universal Health Care System? Unmet Need for Medical Care Among Regular and Irregular Immigrants in Italy

Abstract

Italy has a universal health care system that covers, in principle, the whole resident population, irrespective of citizenship and legal status. This study calculates the prevalence of unmet need for medical care among Italian citizens, regular and irregular immigrants and estimates logistic regression models to assess whether differences by citizenship and legal status hold true once adjusting for potential confounders. The analysis is based on two Surveys on Income and Living Conditions of Italian households and households with foreigners. Controlling for various factors, the odds of experiencing unmet need for medical care are 27% higher for regular immigrants than for Italian citizens and 59% higher for irregular immigrants. The gaps by citizenship and legal status are even more striking among those with chronic illnesses. These results reveal the high vulnerability of immigrants in Italy and the need to develop more effective policies to achieve health care access for all residents.

Unmet Medical Care Needs Due To Payment Difficulty

“…Similar results were obtained for variables such as age [21,26,27,36], marital status [37], [40], educational status [26,39,41] and household income [28,42].…”

“…In other studies related to health services not met in medical care, gender variable, which is one of the demographic features, was found to be a signi cant factor [38] but in this study, it was found that it wasn't signi cant factor. Similarly, birthplace and citizenship variables are among the variables that have no signi cant effect unlike other study results [36,39].…”

“…Results show that 13.6% of respondents in Turkey have paying di culty in medical care. Studies conducted in other countries on a similar subject were examined and in these studies, the rates such as 12% in Italy [36], 16.6% in Hungary [27] and 11.6% in Korea [37] are noteworthy.…”

The Association Between the Perceived Unjust Treatment in Healthcare Settings and the Unmet Need for General Practitioner Services Among People With Foreign Background in Finland

“…Despite universal health coverage, previous studies have shown that in many countries there are inequities in unmet need for medical care between people of foreign background (PFB) and the general population. [1][2][3] Similar results have been reported in Finland 4,5 . The experiences of unjust treatment appear to be more common among immigrants and ethnic minorities in comparison to the general population in many countries 6,7 , including Finland 8 .…”

“…Perceived unjust treatment has also been linked to poorer self-rated health 8,20 which is a widely accepted predictor of both morbidity and mortality 23 . Those that report poor self-rated health or have existing chronic illnesses often also express greater need for medical care than others 3,24 .…”