TY - JOUR

T1 - Health status of refugees newly resettled in Denmark

AU - Andersen, Mathilde Horn

AU - Kruse, Alexandra

AU - Frederiksen, Hanne Winther

AU - Ahmadi, Afsaneh

AU - Norredam, Marie

N1 - Articles published in the DMJ are “open access”. This means that the articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - INTRODUCTION: The municipality of Copenhagen offers general health assessment (GHA) to all newly resettled refugees, conducted at the Section of Immigrant Medicine, Hvidovre Hospital. This study described their disease burden and sociodemographic characteristics.METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, all adult individuals assessed from 1 January 2017 to 30 January 2019 were included. Doctors performed the GHA, including a structured questionnaire, clinical examination and blood testing.RESULTS: In total, 160 refugees were included. Few suffered from communicable diseases (e.g., 1% hepatitis B virus) or other somatic diseases (4% diabetes Type 2). However, deficiencies such as vitamin D deficiency (76%), vitamin B12 deficiency (31%) and anaemia (12%) were frequent. The majority reported headache (54%) or other pain (53%). Furthermore, signs of post-traumatic stress disorder were frequent (33%) and significantly associated with experience of torture, prison and persecution.CONCLUSIONS: The population presented with pertinent health issues such as vitamin deficiencies, mental health issues and symptoms of pain. Few suffered from non-communicable or communicable diseases. Our results suggest that an offer of specialised services at municipality level for all newly resettled refugees may be beneficial. Furthermore, the study underlines the need for more research within the field of refugee health.FUNDING: None.TRIAL REGISTRATION: Ethical approval was obtained from the Capital Region of Denmark and the Danish Patient Safety Authority.

AB - INTRODUCTION: The municipality of Copenhagen offers general health assessment (GHA) to all newly resettled refugees, conducted at the Section of Immigrant Medicine, Hvidovre Hospital. This study described their disease burden and sociodemographic characteristics.METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, all adult individuals assessed from 1 January 2017 to 30 January 2019 were included. Doctors performed the GHA, including a structured questionnaire, clinical examination and blood testing.RESULTS: In total, 160 refugees were included. Few suffered from communicable diseases (e.g., 1% hepatitis B virus) or other somatic diseases (4% diabetes Type 2). However, deficiencies such as vitamin D deficiency (76%), vitamin B12 deficiency (31%) and anaemia (12%) were frequent. The majority reported headache (54%) or other pain (53%). Furthermore, signs of post-traumatic stress disorder were frequent (33%) and significantly associated with experience of torture, prison and persecution.CONCLUSIONS: The population presented with pertinent health issues such as vitamin deficiencies, mental health issues and symptoms of pain. Few suffered from non-communicable or communicable diseases. Our results suggest that an offer of specialised services at municipality level for all newly resettled refugees may be beneficial. Furthermore, the study underlines the need for more research within the field of refugee health.FUNDING: None.TRIAL REGISTRATION: Ethical approval was obtained from the Capital Region of Denmark and the Danish Patient Safety Authority.

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33269693

VL - 67

JO - Danish Medical Journal

JF - Danish Medical Journal

SN - 2245-1919

IS - 12

M1 - A08200567

ER -