The self-reported health of legal and illegal/irregular immigrants in the Czech Republic.
OBJECTIVE
To test whether immigrants with illegal/irregular status have higher odds of poor self-rated health (SRH) than immigrants with legal status, and whether different demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial factors affect SRH among legal and illegal/irregular immigrants.


METHODS
Analysis is based on data from two questionnaire surveys of 285 Post-Soviet and Vietnamese immigrants (126 legal and 159 illegal/irregular) living and working in the Czech Republic, which were conducted between 2003 and 2006. The risk of poor SRH was estimated by ordered polytomous regression, the dependent variable was SRH, and selected demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial characteristics entered the analysis as explanatory variables.


RESULTS
Odds of poor SRH among illegal immigrants were not statistically significantly higher than among legal migrants in fully adjusted analysis. Females and older immigrants had poorer SRH. Satisfaction with work, and, partly, with housing were found to have a significant role. Educational level and 'social communication' variables did not have an important role in predicting SRH.


CONCLUSIONS
Inequalities in SRH among legal and illegal immigrants were largely explained by socioeconomic and psychosocial factors in this study. These results should stimulate further research activities that might improve health policy and planning related to immigrants' health in this and other countries in Europe.
Pikhart
Hynek
H
University College London, International Institute for Society and Health, London, UK. h.pikhart@ucl.ac.uk
Drbohlav
Dusan
D
Dzurova
Dagmar
D
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D018153:Czech Republic; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012426:Russia / Q000208:ethnology; D057566:Self Report; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012923:Social Class; D014455:Ukraine / Q000208:ethnology; D014744:Vietnam / Q000208:ethnology; D055815:Young Adult