Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

EU-28 Country Clusters and Patterns of Disease During the European Refugee Crisis

  • Published:
Journal of International Migration and Integration Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The current refugee crisis has forced European countries to face an increase in chronic disease and the re-emergence of previously eradicated infectious diseases. This study examines Eurostat statistics for the year 2015 for 28 European countries and Turkey to investigate the interplay of patterns of chronic and infectious diseases and migration integration indicators among European country groups. Study results indicate the prevalence of two distinct clusters of chronic and infectious diseases and migration integration indicators, whereby the group comprising major host countries such as Germany, Turkey, and Spain is contrasted with the second group comprising other countries. Country clusters differ in terms of all study variables (p ˂ 0.0001). Increasing collaboration and developing measures to address health inequalities and improve refugee integration in order to reduce threats from chronic infectious diseases are advisable strategies for health policymakers in Europe.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Acharya, G. (2016). The refugee crisis in Europe: will it increase disparity in women’s health. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 95(4), 375–376.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Busse, R., Blümel, M., Scheller-Kreinsen, D., & Zentner, A. (2017). Tackling chronic disease in Europe-strategies interventions and challenges. In European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Observatory Studies Series. No:20. http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/96632/E93736.pdf. Accessed 10 April 2017.

  • Calvo, N., Perez, B., Varela-Candamio, L., & Novo-Corti, I. (2016). Stimulating creative entrepreneurial initiatives: a flow diagram for strategic planning. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 29(4), 425–441.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Celeux, G., & Govaert, G. (1992). A classification EM algorithm for clustering and two stochastic versions. Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, 14(3), 315–332.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cutler, S. J. (2016). Refugee crisis and re-emergence of forgotten ınfections in Europe. Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 22(1), 8–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dempster, A. P., Laird, N. M., & Rubin, D. B. (1977). Maximum likelihood from incomplete data via the EM algorithm. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 39(1), 1–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doocy, S., Lyles, E., Roberton, T., Akhu-Zaheya, L., Oweis, A., & Burnham, G. (2015). Prevalence and care-seeking for chronic diseases among Syrian refugees in Jordan. BMC Public Health, 15(1097), 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Comission (EC) (2018). European civil protection and humanitarian aid operations. http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/aid/countries/factsheets/turkey_syrian_crisis_en.pdf. Accessed 4 April 2018.

  • European Union (EU) (2016). The member states of the European Union. http://en.strasbourg-europe.eu/member-states,3322,en.html. Accessed 22 Oct 2016.

  • Eurostat (2016). http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database. Accessed 23 Nov 2016.

  • Eurostat (2018). Asylum statistics. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics. Accessed 3 April 2018.

  • Fraley, C., & Raftery, A. E. (1998). How many clusters? Which clustering method? Answers via model-based cluster analysis. The Computer Journal, 41(8), 578–588.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • googleVis (2018). https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/googleVis/googleVis.pdf. Accessed 24 March 2019.

  • Hebebrand, J., Anagnostopoulos, D., Eliez, S., Linse, H., Pejovic-Milovancevic, M., & Klasen, H. (2016). A first assessment of the needs of young refugees arriving in Europe: what mental health professionals need to know. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 25(1), 1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill, L., Gray, R., Stroud, J., & Chiripanyanga, S. (2009). Inter-professional learning to prepare medical and social work students for practice with refugees and asylum seekers. Social Work Education, 28(3), 298–308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, S. M., & Castaneda, H. (2016). Representing the “European Refugee Crisis” in Germany and beyond: deservingness and difference, life and death. American Ethnologist, 43(1), 12–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Husseini, A., Abu-Rmeileh, N. M., Mikki, N., Ramahi, T. M., Ghosh, H. A., Barghuthi, N., Khalili, M., Bjertness, E., Holmboe-Ottesen, G., & Jervell, J. (2009). Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus and cancer in the occupied Palestinian territory. The Lancet, 373(9668), 1041–1049.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khan, M. S., Osei-Kofi, A., Omar, A., Kirkbride, H., Kessel, A., Abbara, A., Heymann, D., Zumla, A., & Dar, O. (2016). Pathogens, prejudice and politics: the role of the global health community in the European refugee crisis. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 16(8), 173–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knai, C., Brusamento, S., Legido-Quigley, H., Saliba, V., Panteli, D., Turk, E., Car, J., Mckee, M., & Busse, R. (2012). Systematic review of the methological quality of clinical guideline development for the management of chronic disease in Europe. Health Policy, 107(2–3), 157–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Konishi, S. (1981). Normalizing transformations of some statistics in multivariate analysis. Biometrika, 68(3), 647–651.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laubenthal, B. (2019). Refugees welcome? Reforms of German asylum policies between 2013 and 2017 and Germany’s transformation into an ımmigration country. German Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2018.1561872.

  • Leblebicioğlu, H. (2016). Managing health and infections in refugees: Turkey’s experience. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 455, 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2016.02.167 Accessed 24 October 2018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malmusi, D. (2015). Immigrants’ health and health inequality by type of integration policies in European countries. European Journal of Public Health., 25(2), 293–299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manafi, I., Marinescu, D., Roman, M., & Hemming, K. (2017). Mobility in Europe: recent trends from a cluster analysis. Amfiteatru Economic, 19(46), 711–726.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muscat, M., Bang, H., Wohlfahrt, J., Glismann, S., Molbak, K., & EUVAC.NET Group. (2009). Measles in Europe: an epidemiological assessment. The Lancet, 373(9661), 383–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nienaber, B., & Roos, U. (2016). Globalising rural areas: international migrants in rural Germany. Global Challenge and Human Mobility, Part of the series Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences (pp. 285–302). Singapore: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palinkas, L. A., Pickwell, S. M., Brandstein, K., Clark, T. J., Hill, L. L., Moser, R. J., & Osman, A. (2003). The journey to wellness: stages of refugee health promotion and disease prevention. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 5(1), 19–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salt, J., & Miller, J. (2006). In whose interets? IT migration in an interconnected world. Population, Space and Place, 13(1), 41–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shahin, Y., Kapur, A., & Seita, A. (2015). Diabetes care in refugee camps: the experience of UNRWA. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 108(1), 1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silbermann, M., Daher, M., Kebudi, R., Nimri, O., Al-Jadiry, M., & Baider, L. (2016). Middle Eastern conflicts: implications for refugee health in the European Union and Middle Eastern host countries. Journal of Global Oncology, 2(6), 422–430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sirkeci, I., & Cohen, J. H. (2016). Cultures of migration and conflict in contemporary human mobility in Turkey. European Review, 24(3), 381–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stead, W. W. (1997). The origin and erratic global spread of tuberculosis: how the past explains the present and is the key to the future. Clinics in Chest Medicine, 18(1), 65–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Terasaki, G., Ahrenholz, N. C., & Haider, M. Z. (2015). Care of adult refugees with chronic conditions. The Medical Clinics of North America, 99(5), 1039–1058.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Theuring, S., Friedrich-Janicke, B., Pörtner, K., Trebesch, I., Durst, A., Dieckmann, S., Steiner, F., Harms, G., & Mochenhaupt, F. P. (2016). Screening for infectious diseases among unaccompanied minor refugees in Berlin, 2014-2015. European Journal of Epidemiology, 31(7), 707–710.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations High Commission For Refugees (UNHCR) (2015). Global trends. In Forced displacements in 2015. http://www.unhcr.org. Accessed 4 April 2018.

  • Wallace, E., Salisbury, C., Guthrie, B., Lewis, C., Fahey, T., & Smith, S. M. (2015). Managing patients with multimorbidity in primary care. British Medical Journal, 350, 1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warren Liao, T. (2005). Clustering of time series data—a survey. Pattern Recognition, 38(11), 1857–1874.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Witten, I., & Frank, E. (2005). Data mining practical machine learning tools and techniques (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Morgan Kaufman.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization (WHO)-Europe (2016). Migration and health: key issues. http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/293270/Migration-Health-Key-Issues-.pdf?ua=1. Accessed 1 June 2017.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Care Management, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

    Songul Cinaroglu

Authors
  1. Songul Cinaroglu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Songul Cinaroglu.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cinaroglu, S. EU-28 Country Clusters and Patterns of Disease During the European Refugee Crisis. Int. Migration & Integration 21, 879–891 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-019-00686-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-019-00686-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation