Comparison of Health Care Resource Utilization by Immigrants Versus Native Elderly People

To compare the utilization of health care resources (drug prescriptions, hospital admissions and health care services) by immigrant versus native elderly people (65 years or more), by using administrative database of the Lombardy Region. For each immigrant (an older people born out of Italy), one person born in Lombardy (native) was randomly selected and matched by age, sex and general practitioner. The 25,508 immigrants selected were less prescribed with at least one drug (OR 0.72, 95 % CI 0.67–0.76) and had a lesser use of health care services (OR 0.79, 95 % CI 0.75–0.84) than natives. No statistically significant differences were found for hospital admission rates (OR 0.99, 95 % CI 0.99–1.04). A lower rate of health care resource utilization was observed in elderly immigrants who had been living in the host region for as many as 10 years.