gms | German Medical Science

23rd Annual Meeting of the German Drug Utilisation Research Group (GAA)

Gesellschaft für Arzneimittelanwendungsforschung und Arzneimittelepidemiologie

24.11. - 25.11.2016, Bochum

Prescriptions of pharmaceuticals to asylum seekers

Meeting Abstract

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Gesellschaft für Arzneimittelanwendungsforschung und Arzneimittelepidemiologie e.V. (GAA). 23. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Arzneimittelanwendungsforschung und Arzneimittelepidemiologie. Bochum, 24.-25.11.2016. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2016. Doc16gaa18

doi: 10.3205/16gaa18, urn:nbn:de:0183-16gaa180

Published: November 23, 2016

© 2016 Selke et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

Background: Following the increasing immigration, in particular by people seeking asylum, some aspects of coverage for their needs for health services were changed by law. As a consequence, starting from January 2016, information about prescriptions to this group of people is identifiably available in the claims data of the statutory health care funds. Structural differences between their needs for pharmaceuticals and their patterns of usage have been surmised, but have, to our knowledge, not yet been studied empirically.

Materials and Methods: The claims data of those seeking asylum are currently identifiably available for analysis for the first six months of 2016. Nation-wide information is included in GAmSi data, but without reference to individuals, while AOK data allow (anonymous) attribution to recipients. Information on the numbers of persons entitled to coverage is, unfortunately, not yet available from statutory health insurances, as aren't diagnoses. We present a description of structural differences of usage for asylum seekers compared to the general population according to ATC groups. Since standardisation according to age and sex is not (yet) possible due to lack of data, our analysis will be stratified by age, instead.

Results: Usage patterns for asylum seekers vary substantially from those of the general population. In particular, the share of cardiovascular drugs is less than half of the share for the population at large, while drugs for the alimentary, nervous and sensory systems (ATC main groups A, N, and S) is substantially higher. A large part of the differences can be explained by marked differences in age structure, but even in a stratified analysis, there are noteworthy differences. Analyses at lower ATC levels show also more fine-grained differences.

Conclusion: We are currently not able to compute standard measures like DDD per caput of the (sub-)population, hence, we cannot provide conclusions as for the absolute level of treatment needed. However, substantial structural differences between asylum seekers and the general population are readily apparent, not all of which can be explained by discrepancies in age structure. The initial hypothesis of different disease patterns is corroborated by the analysis, giving clues to different needs of this subgroup of the population covered by the health care system.


References

1.
Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz (AsylblG). https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bundesrecht/asylblg/gesamt.pdf External link