Abstract
Describing the health status of a population is difficult, especially in the case of irregular migrants who are now a growing population in western Countries. Data for children of these families are almost inexistent. In the absence of databases on this peculiar pediatric population, we analyzed drugs dispensation by a major Charity to have an insight into their health needs. This observational retrospective study was carried out during the entire 2015 and enrolled 628 undocumented children. A cohort of 8438 adult patients belonging to the same ethnic groups was used for comparison. Respiratory drugs were those most commonly prescribed, followed by those for skin and ocular diseases and by those for gastrointestinal disorders. Also in adults respiratory medications were the most dispensed, but almost in equal measure than cardiovascular drugs.To our knowledge this is the first study on the health needs of undocumented children residing in a western Country. The method we used seems to be a useful method for epidemiological analysis. As could be expected, respiratory and skin diseases ranked first, possibly owing to environmental factors.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the “Opera San Francesco” for providing us with their data and especially for believing in the utility of our work. Our efforts would have been unsuccessful without the support of the “P.E.R.I.PH.E.RY Study Group” and of the “Osservatorio Donazione Farmaci - Banco Farmaceutico”.
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This study was approved by a local Ethics Committee. The design of the study is a retrospective observational analysis of drugs dispensation and therefore the Ethics Committee did not require individual informed consent. No identifying information about participants is available in the article.
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Bini, S., Clavenna, A., Rigamonti, A. et al. Drugs Delivery by Charities: A Possible Epidemiologic Indicator in Children of Undocumented Migrants. J Immigrant Minority Health 19, 1379–1385 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0471-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0471-6