Impact of legal status regularization on undocumented migrants' self-reported and mental health in Switzerland

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_9274C537863A
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Impact of legal status regularization on undocumented migrants' self-reported and mental health in Switzerland
Journal
SSM - Population Health
Author(s)
Refle Jan-Erik, Fakhoury Julien, Burton-Jeangros Claudine, Consoli Liala, Jackson Yves
ISSN
2352-8273
Publication state
Published
Issued date
06/2023
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
22
Pages
101398
Language
english
Abstract
Undocumented migrants face cumulative difficulties like precarious living and working conditions or exclusion from health services that might negatively influence their health. Little is known about the evolution of undocumented migrants’ self-reported health (SRH) and mental health after they get documented. This study aims to observe the effect of legal status regularization on SRH and mental health in a cohort of migrants undergoing regularization in Geneva, Switzerland. We evaluate SRH with the first item of the Short Form Survey (SF12) and depression as a proxy of mental health with the PHQ-9 questionnaire over four years among 387 undocumented and newly documented migrants. Using hybrid linear models, our data show that regularization has no direct effect on SRH, but has direct positive effects on mental health in a longitudinal perspective, even when controlling for competing factors. The arrival of the pandemic did not alter these effects. Migrants tend to evaluate their subjective health status more positively than the prevalence of screened depression shows. Those findings point towards better targeted policies that could reduce the burden of depression among undocumented migrants.
Keywords
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Health Policy, Health (social science)
Open Access
Yes
Create date
24/04/2023 12:10
Last modification date
25/04/2023 6:53
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