Dataset Information

An observational study of immigrant mortality differences in Norway by reason for migration, length of stay and characteristics of sending countries.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Knowledge of mortality differentials in immigrant groups depending on their reason for migration, length of stay in host countries and characteristics of sending countries may be beneficial for policy interventions aimed to improve various immigrant groups' health and welfare. METHODS:We employed discrete-time hazard regression models with time-varying covariates to compare the death risk of immigrants to those of Norwegian-born natives using linked register data on the Norwegian population aged 25-79 during 1990-2015. More than 492,000 deaths occurred in around 4.6 million individuals. All analyses were adjusted for sex, age, calendar time and sociodemographic characteristics. RESULTS:Immigrants had an 11% survival advantage overall. Those immigrating due to work or education had the lowest death risk, whereas refugees had the highest death risk (albeit lower than that of natives). Death risks increased markedly with length of stay, and were most pronounced for those having spent more than 40% of their lives in Norway. Net of reason for migration, only minor differences were observed depending on Human Development Index characteristics of sending countries. CONCLUSION:Independent of reason for migration and characteristics of sending countries, those who immigrate to Norway in adulthood appear to be particularly healthy. The higher death risk associated with prolonged lengths of stay suggests that disadvantageous 'acculturation' or stress factors related to the post-migration period may play a role in the long run. The health and welfare of long-term immigrants thus warrants further research.

SUBMITTER: Syse A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5905163 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

An observational study of immigrant mortality differences in Norway by reason for migration, length of stay and characteristics of sending countries.

Syse Astri A Dzamarija Minja T MT Kumar Bernadette N BN Diaz Esperanza E

BMC public health 20180417 1

<h4>Background</h4>Knowledge of mortality differentials in immigrant groups depending on their reason for migration, length of stay in host countries and characteristics of sending countries may be beneficial for policy interventions aimed to improve various immigrant groups' health and welfare.<h4>Methods</h4>We employed discrete-time hazard regression models with time-varying covariates to compare the death risk of immigrants to those of Norwegian-born natives using linked register data on the ...[more]

PMID: 29665802

Similar Datasets

Project description:The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment, also known as SOFA score, was introduced to assess organ dysfunction of critical ill patients. However, understanding the impact of missing SOFA scores in randomized controlled trials and how this affect the validity and applicability of the SOFA score as a surrogate endpoint for predicting mortality has been a matter of interest. To address this, a secondary analysis of a systematic review was conducted to quantify the relationship between SOFA scores and the prediction of mortality in critically ill adults in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The systematic review being referred to included 87 RCTs with a total of 12,064 critically ill patients. This analysis focused on missing SOFA score data in relation to the length of stay on the intensive care unit (ICU) and the methods used to handle missing data. SOFA score measurements from the included studies were categorized into three time frames: Early (t ≤ 4 days), Intermediate (t = 5-10 days) and Late (t > 10 days) measurement. Only one study reported a complete data set for calculating the SOFA score for an Early measurement. When considering all methods used to address missing data, 32% of studies still had missing data for Early measurements, and this percentage increased to 64% for Late measurements. These findings suggested that, over time, the number of studies with incomplete data sets has been increasing. The longer a patient is treated on the ICU, the higher the number of missing data which can impact the validity of SOFA score analyses. There was no clear trend towards a specific method for compensating missing data. An exemplary calculation demonstrated that ignoring missing data may lead to an underestimated variability of the treatment effect. This, in turn, could bias the interpretation of study results by policy- and clinical decision-makers. Overall, there are several limitations that need to be considered when using SOFA score as a surrogate endpoint for mortality. When employed as an outcome, the SOFA score is frequently missing and most studies do not adequately describe the amount or nature of missing data, or the methods used to handle missing data in the analysis.

Dataset Information

An observational study of immigrant mortality differences in Norway by reason for migration, length of stay and characteristics of sending countries.

Publications

An observational study of immigrant mortality differences in Norway by reason for migration, length of stay and characteristics of sending countries.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets