Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Upon arrival, immigrants are healthier than Canadian-born citizens (known as the "healthy immigrant effect"), but non-European immigrants become as healthy as, or less healthy than, the Canadian-born within 10 years of arrival. Lack of proficiency in the official language was reported as the third most serious barrier immigrants encountered when accessing health care services (next to no health card and no doctor). BC receives a much higher distribution of immigrants (27.5%) than the national average. Chinese and South Asian newcomers make up the highest proportion of BC immigrants (37% and 20%, respectively). However, they reported the highest level of English or French illiteracy (19.6% and 18.2% respectively). The goal of my research is to study Chinese and Punjabi immigrants' experiences with the BC primary health care system and investigate how these experiences influence their health status and confidence/satisfaction with BC primary health care system. The proposed study tests the hypotheses that better communication, continuous relationship, and high cultural responsiveness lead to higher confidence in and satisfaction with BC primary health care services; 2) English- proficient immigrants, regardless of their ethnicity, will report more positive experiences with the primary health care services leading to a higher level of satisfaction; and hence 3) English-illiterate immigrants will report a lower level of health status than the English-proficient immigrants. The proposed research will help improve the health care of the immigrant populations by identifying barriers they encountered with the PHC system and reducing the gaps in the delivery of the PHC services to the immigrants.