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Expert groups

Social and occupational influences, migration

Project goals

The health of the people in Germany is influenced not least by socio-economic factors such as education, employment status, average income per person, unemployment, migration background and occupational risks. An analysis of health by gender also shows clear differences. The differences between social groups are pronounced in some cases and affect almost all major diseases and health-related risk factors.

Tasks:

  • Support for the preparation of raw data for scientific data analysis
  • Creation of relevant derived variables to determine socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics, as well as migration status; orientation towards central reference studies
  • Support in the further development of methods and survey instruments in the follow-up studies of NAKO participants
  • Support through expert knowledge for topic-specific queries or through external cooperation partners
  • Comparative studies on medical care in different migrant groups
  • Analyses to estimate the effect of migration status or social class on incidence, survival and mortality of various chronic and communicable diseases

First results

  • Cognitive performance: This was significantly reduced in participants with a low income, unemployed or living alone. The combination of these factors intensified the effect.
  • Access to care for people with and without a migration background: The results show that there are barriers to the utilisation of psychological measures for specific groups with a migration background. These need to be addressed in the provision of care.

Publications

  • Rodriguez FS, Röhr S, Dragano N, et al. Low income, being without employment, and living alone: how they are associated with cognitive functioning—Results from the German national cohort (NAKO). Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition. 2024:1-6. http://doi.org/10.1080/13825585.2024.2438825
  • Kleineidam, L., Stark, M., Riedel-Heller, S. et al. (2023). The assessment of cognitive function in the German National Cohort (NAKO) – Associations of demographics and psychiatric symptoms with cognitive test performance. The world journal of biological psychiatry : the official journal of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry, 24(10), 909–923. https://doi.org/10.1080/15622975.2021.2011408
  • Wiessner, C., Licaj, S., Klein, J, et al. (2024). Health Service Use Among Migrants in the German National Cohort-The Role of Birth Region and Language Skills. International journal of public health, 69, 1606377. https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2024.1606377

Speakers

Prof Dr. Nico Dragano
Prof. Dr. Heiko Becher
Prof. Dr. Börge Schmidt (Deputy Spokesperson)