Submit an Article > Register > Login >

Annali

dell'Istituto Superiore di Sanità

Search
Vol. 56 No. 3 (2020)
Original Articles
2020-09-11
Share on

COVID-19 mortality among migrants living in Italy

Authors

Marco Canevelli , Luigi Palmieri , Valeria Raparelli , Ornella Punzo , Chiara Donfrancesco , Cinzia Lo Noce , Nicola Vanacore , Silvio Brusaferro , Graziano Onder , and the Italian National Institute of Health COVID-19 Mortality Group

Abstract

We aimed to compare COVID-19-specific and all-cause mortality rates among natives and migrants in Italy and to investigate the clinical characteristics of individuals dying with COVID-19 by native/migrant status.  

The mortality rates and detailed clinical characteristics of natives and migrants dying with COVID-19 were explored by considering the medical charts of a representative sample of patients deceased in Italian hospitals (n=2,687). The migrant or native status was assigned based on the individual’s country of birth. The expected all-cause mortality among natives and migrants living in Italy was derived by the last available (2018) dataset provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics.

Overall, 68 individuals with a migration background were identified. The proportions of natives and migrants among the COVID-19-related deaths (97.5% and 2.5%, respectively) were similar to the relative all-cause mortality rates estimated in Italy in 2018 (97.4% and 2.6%, respectively). The clinical phenotype of migrants dying with COVID-19 was similar to that of natives except for the younger age at death.      

International migrants living in Italy do not have a mortality advantage for COVID-19 and are exposed to the risk of poor outcomes as their native counterparts.

Keywords: COVID-19, migration, SARS-CoV-2, global health.

References

  1. Aldridge RW, Nellums LB, Bartlett S, et al. Global patterns of mortality in international migrants: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet. 2018;392(10164):2553–66. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32781-8.
  2. Reus-Pons M, Vandenheede H, Janssen F, Kibele EUB. Differences in mortality between groups of older migrants and older non-migrants in Belgium, 2001–09. Eur J Public Health. 2016;26(6):992–1000. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckw076.
  3. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. International Migration 2019: Report (ST/ESA/SER.A/438). 2019. Available from: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/InternationalMigration2019_Report.pdf
  4. Riccardo F, Ajelli M, Andrianou X, et al. Epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 cases in Italy and estimates of the reproductive numbers one month into the epidemic. medRxiv. 2020 Apr 11; doi: 10.1101/2020.04.08.20056861.
  5. Onder G, Rezza G, Brusaferro S. Case-Fatality Rate and Characteristics of Patients Dying in Relation to COVID-19 in Italy. JAMA. 2020; In Press. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.4683.
  6. Gazzetta Ufficiale [Internet]. [cited 2020 Apr 21]. Available from: https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/2020/02/28/20A01348/SG
  7. Meli, E. Immigrati e vaccino anti-Tbc. Come stanno davvero le cose [Internet]. Corriere della Sera. 2020 [cited 2020 Apr 24]. Available from: https://www.corriere.it/salute/malattie-rare/20_marzo_25/coronavirus-immigrati-vaccino-antitubercolare-come-stanno-cose-f13a84ba-6eb2-11ea-925b-a0c3cdbe1130.shtml
  8. Migration and migrant population statistics - Statistics Explained [Internet]. [cited 2020 Apr 28]. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics
  9. Kluge HHP, Jakab Z, Bartovic J, D’Anna V, Severoni S. Refugee and migrant health in the COVID-19 response. Lancet. 2020;395(10232):1237–9. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30791-1.
  10. Pareek M, Bangash MN, Pareek N, et al. Ethnicity and COVID-19: an urgent public health research priority. Lancet. 2020;395(10234):1421-1422. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30922-3.

Downloads

PDF
Authors

Marco Canevelli

Luigi Palmieri

Valeria Raparelli

Ornella Punzo

Chiara Donfrancesco

Cinzia Lo Noce

Nicola Vanacore

Silvio Brusaferro

Graziano Onder

and the Italian National Institute of Health COVID-19 Mortality Group

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2020 Annali dell'Istituto Superiore di Sanità

How to Cite
Canevelli, M., Palmieri, L., Raparelli, V., Punzo, O., Donfrancesco, C., Lo Noce, C., Vanacore, N., Brusaferro, S., Onder, G., & the Italian National Institute of Health COVID-19 Mortality Group, and. (2020). COVID-19 mortality among migrants living in Italy. Annali dell’Istituto Superiore Di Sanità, 56(3), 373–377. Retrieved from https://annali.iss.it/index.php/anna/article/view/1111
  • Abstract viewed - 601 times
  • PDF downloaded - 267 times