Immigrants' access to healthcare in Denmark
Around one fifth of newly arrived immigrants in Denmark experience difficulties when trying to access healthcare in Denmark, in spite of the stated goal of the Danish Health Act to ensure ‘easy and equal access’ to healthcare for all residents. Most difficulties are experienced by refugees and their families who report that they encounter barriers related to finances, communication and knowledge about the healthcare system to a larger extent than other types of immigrants.
These are some of the results of a study just published in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, co-authored by PhD student in CEPRI, Maj Rørdam Nielsen, and Associate Professor Signe Smith Jervelund from the Danish Research Centre for Migration, Ethnicity and Health, Department of Public Health. The study compares immigrants’ ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ access to healthcare and looks into how experiences of access vary with different types of residence permits.
The study is part of Silvia Adamo’s project “Law and Private Governance for a New Understanding of Integration (LUII)”, funded by the Carlsberg Foundation.
The full article can be found here:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14034948231173473
A freely available post-print of the article can be found here: https://jura.ku.dk/english/staff/research/?pure=en%2Fpublications%2Fexperiences-of-access-to-healthcare-among-newly-arrived-immigrants-in-denmark-examining-the-role-of-residence-permit(33c713f4-764f-45c1-8e0c-27becde563be).html