Migrant healthcare workers during COVID-19: bringing an intersectional health system-related approach into pandemic protection. A German case study

• Published in: Frontiers in public health Vol. 11; p. 1152862
• Main Authors: Kuhlmann, Ellen, Ungureanu, Marius-Ionut, Behrens, Georg M N, Cossmann, Anne, Fehr, Leonie Mac, Klawitter, Sandra, Mikuteit, Marie, Müller, Frank, Thilo, Nancy, Brînzac, Monica Georgina, Dopfer-Jablonka, Alexandra
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 18.07.2023
• Subjects: COVID-19 pandemic; health system; health workforce; intersectional inequalities; migrant healthcare workers; Public Health; SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19 pandemic; SARS-CoV-2; intersectional inequalities; health system; secondary data analysis; migrant healthcare workers; Germany; health workforce
• ISSN: 2296-2565; 2296-2565
• DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1152862

Migrant healthcare workers played an important role during the COVID-19 pandemic, but data are lacking especially for high-resourced European healthcare systems. This study aims to research migrant healthcare workers through an intersectional health system-related approach, using Germany as a case study. An intersectional research framework was created and a rapid scoping study performed. Secondary analysis of selected items taken from two COVID-19 surveys was undertaken to compare perceptions of national and foreign-born healthcare workers, using descriptive statistics. Available research is focused on worst-case pandemic scenarios of Brazil and the United Kingdom, highlighting racialised discrimination and higher risks of migrant healthcare workers. The German data did not reveal significant differences between national-born and foreign-born healthcare workers for items related to health status including SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination, and perception of infection risk, protective workplace measures, and government measures, but items related to social participation and work conditions with higher infection risk indicate a higher burden of migrant healthcare workers. COVID-19 pandemic policy must include migrant healthcare workers, but simply adding the migration status is not enough. We introduce an intersectional health systems-related approach to understand how pandemic policies create social inequalities and how the protection of migrant healthcare workers may be improved.