Perceived need of health care and barriers in access to health services among migrants in Portugal

Health care has been pointed out as a key determinant of migrants' health and social integration, but there is evidence of disparities in its access across subgroups. A deeper understanding of the barriers in access to health care, particularly among vulnerable groups, is needed. Our study aims to examine perceived need of health care, access to health services and barriers among migrants in Portugal. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1126 adult migrants (53.4% females), originated from African, Middle East, Asian countries and Brazil, living in Portugal for no longer than 10 years. The collected data included sociodemographic characteristics, perceived need of health care, access to health services and difficulties experienced. Differences between groups were analysed through chi-square tests. Results showed that most of the participants (64.7%) have needed health care in the previous 12 months in Portugal. Of these, 87.8% accessed a health care service. However, even needing health care, 3.3% decided not to seek care and 8.8% were not able to access a health care service. Reporting no access to health care was more frequent among migrants with shorter length of stay in the country (