Determinants of health care utilization by immigrants in Portugal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The increasing diversity of population in European Countries poses new challenges to national health systems. There is a lack of data on accessibility and use of health care services by migrants, appropriateness of the care provided, client satisfaction and problems experienced when confronting the health care system. This limits knowledge about the multiple determinants of the utilization of health services. The aim of this study was to describe the access of migrants to health care and its determinants in Portugal.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study sample included 1513 immigrants (53% men), interviewed at the National Immigrant Support Centre, in Lisbon. Data were collected using questionnaires. The magnitude of associations between use of National Health Service and socio-demographic variables was estimated by means of odds ratios (OR) at 95% confidence intervals, calculated using logistic regression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among participants, 3.6% stated not knowing where to go if facing a health problem. Approximately 20% of the respondents reported that they had never used the National Health Service, men more than women. Among National Health Service users, 35.6% attended Health Centres, 12% used Hospital services, and 54.4% used both. Among the participants that ever used the health services, 22.4% reported to be unsatisfied or very unsatisfied. After adjusting for all variables, utilization of health services, among immigrant men, remained significantly associated with length of stay, legal status, and country of origin. Among immigrant women, the use of health services was significantly associated with length of stay and country of origin.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There is a clear need to better understand how to ensure access to health care services and to deliver appropriate care to immigrants, and that special consideration must be given to recent and undocumented migrants. To increase health services use, and the uptake of prevention programs, barriers must be identified and approaches to remove them developed, through coherent and comprehensive strategies.</p

Women from the Middle East and North Africa in Europe: Understanding their marriage and family dynamics

The aim of this article is to assist the understanding of social workers in Europe of marriage and family dynamics among women from Middle East and North African countries who have moved to Europe. The focus of this article is on husband selection processes and family dynamics after marriage in Egypt, which is used as a case study reflecting culture and norms surrounding marriage in this region. This article reports on the findings of doctoral studies which examined marriage patterns and family dynamics in North Africa and in particular in Egypt where more in-depth data were available. The authors reflect issues surrounding values and process of marriage not only in terms of the implications for practice with social work clients or service users, but also in relation to the potential of women from this region who may join the social care workforce

Cigarette use among Arab Americans in the Detroit metropolitan area.

Use of cigarette tobacco by large proportions of the population of Middle Eastern countries has been reported; however, little is known about smoking behavior in one of America's fastest growing minorities, the Arab Americans. The purpose of this study was to examine cigarette smoking behavior of 237 randomly selected Arab American adults from a telephone listing in the Detroit area. Participants lived in the geographic Arab American community and identified with a Middle Eastern cultural heritage. Nurses, who spoke both English and Arabic, interviewed one adult family member using the 59-item self-report from the Cardiovascular Risk Factor Survey developed by Rice. Mean age of respondents was 40.4 years, 97 percent had been born in the Middle East, and 67 percent had been living in the United States 15 years or less. Current smokers rate was 38.9 percent, former smokers rate was 11.1 percent, never smokers rate was 50 percent, and the quit ratio (proportion of ever smokers who are former smokers) was 22.2 percent. Fifty-four percent of the current smokers were between 25 and 34 years of age; fewer women than men were former smokers, and the highest proportion of current smokers were Lebanese. Subjects who had smoked for the longest time were the least well educated. Arab Americans in this sample had a higher smoking rate, a lower quitting rate, and a much lower quit ratio when compared with national and State of Michigan data. With the growing numbers of Middle Eastern immigrants, there is potential for a dramatic increase in smoking-related health problems

Innovative autonomous underwater vehicle for research the environment in harsh condition

Na podstawie rzeczywistej, aktualnej wiedzy w temacie rozwoju robotów podwodnych został zaprojektowany nowy pojazd wyposażony w innowacyjne rozwiązania. Autonomiczny robot podwodny dedykowany jest do pracy w trudnych warunkach środowiskowych, wymagających odporności na wysokie ciśnienie, niskie temperatury i silne prądy, które są typowe dla regionów polarnych. W pracy opisano charakterystykę docelowego rejonu, w którym ma być używany robot podwodny, tj. Zatokę Admiralicji w rejonie Archipelagu Szetlandów Południowych. Istotnym aspektem pracy był także dobór odpowiedniego systemu sterowania, który będzie zdolny przeprowadzić pojazd przez trudne i wymagające warunki stawiane przez środowisko zewnętrzne. Kolejnym elementem projektu jest ocena istniejących systemów nawigacji. Ostatnią częścią jest opracowanie kształtu robota, odpowiedniego do warunków otoczenia z uwzględnieniem możliwości zamontowania dodatkowych urządzeń mechanicznych, elektrycznych i pomiarowych, odpowiedzialnych za wykonywanie powierzonych zadań podczas misji robota.The use of Autonomic Underwater Vehicles (AUV) continuously recording the basic environmental parameters in marine polar regions are extremely difficult. This study provides a summary and a description of the existing solutions for the AUV, their use, construction, actuators and transmitters. Based on the actual knowledge a new vehicle equipped with innovative solutions and components was designed. The underwater robot is dedicated to be working in harsh environmental conditions requiring resistance to high pressure, low temperatures and strong currents, which are typical for the polar regions. The first stage of the design process consist of selection miniature sensors, vision systems to collect information about the environment. The next step was to develop a method for processing and storing data from the measurements. There has been elaborated a special communication and data transfer for this system. An important aspect of this design is a proprietary control system, which includes selecting an appropriate drive with the control program Marek Chodnicki, Marek Jażdzewski, Łukasz Kulwicki, Dawid Ławreszuk, Anna A. Panasiuk-Chodnicka 8 according to the external conditions. Another part of the research was the review of the existing navigation systems and subsequently implementation to the designed vehicle. Then, the power system with automatic charging was elaborated, which is possible to use natural energy sources. The last part was to design the shape of the mobile robot, taking into account the environmental conditions and the possibility of mechanical and electronic devices to be installed