Impact of migration in Europe: a new challenges for health care in Spain and Greece

Introduction: Migratory processes are inherent to humans due to comparisons between the environment where they live and the resources they have, and a different environment, in which there may exist with hope for a better resources and possibilities.. Aim: Exploration of the migrants’ health problems and the barriers they face accessing health in the southern European hosting countries.Methodology: A systematic review was undertaken using the following databases: PubMed, SciELO, CINAHL, ProQuest, Google Scholar and Scopus, with combinations of search key words: “immigration”, “health system impact”, “immigration AND Europe”, in English and Spanish. The search revealed 85 papers published between 2013 and 2018, 35 of which were included in this study. The search was performed during December of 2018 and January 2019. Results: Results were grouped in three main categories, in terms of relevance and significance as follows: ‘Economic impact of migration on public health’, ‘Barriers and experiences of migrants in the health system’ and ‘Migrants’ health problems’. Immigrants are reported to use emergency services as an entrance into the health care system but make limited overall use of specialised medical services. Lifelong experiences from their own health care system, can affect immigrants’ expectations of health-illness and care concepts, i.e. these concepts may conflict with the new health care practices they are facing. Most of the research carried out about migrants’ is focused on the disparities between them and non-migrant population. The results show a relative shortage of actual studies focusing on the needs of those in need of health care. Conclusions: Migration is a multilevel phenomenon involving many different ethnic groups and moreover, different layers within these groups