Unmet need for health care: the case of foreigners living in Italy

Abstract

Italy has a public and universal health care system that covers -in principle- both regular and irregular migrants’ health care demand. However, the concrete shows that migrants in Italy experience specific inequalities in health and access to health care, that overlap the existing geographical disparities in the access to care across the country. This study aims to compare self-perceived unmet need among foreigners living in Italy assessing whether it varies from one foreign-national group to the other. In particular, we study the self-reported unmet need as an indicator of access to health care, exploring its reasons. Data used for the analysis come from the Italian special Survey of Income and Living Conditions (IT-SILC) carried on households with foreigners in 2009.