Vitamin D status in patients attending a Danish migrant health clinic: a clinical retrospective study

Vitamin D Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors in Young Danish Women with a Non-Western Ethnic Minority Background-A Questionnaire Survey

The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in women with a non-Western ethnic minority background in Nordic countries is high. The aim of this study was to assess vitamin D knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in women with a non-Western ethic minority background living in Denmark. A validated vitamin D knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors’ questionnaire was translated into Danish, piloted, and distributed via relevant Facebook groups. The responses were analyzed using parametric and non-parametric tests for descriptive and bivariate analyses. In total, 254 women who considered themselves having a non-Western ethnic minority background responded to the questionnaire. The median age (IQR) was 25 (23–33) years old; 32% had a professional bachelor’s, 28% had high school, and 22% had a master’s or higher university education. Participants scored higher on vitamin D general knowledge (scores above 80 on the scale 0–100) compared to vitamin D nutrition knowledge or vitamin D attitudes and behaviors (scores around 60 on the scale 0–100). In conclusion, the vitamin D knowledge among study participants—i.e., young well-educated non-Western ethnic minority women in Denmark—was pretty good. The further examination of vitamin D knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors should explore specifics related to nationality and religion and focus on less-educated non-Western ethnic minority women in Denmark and other Nordic countries.

Review of infectious diseases in refugees and asylum seekers-current status and going forward

An unprecedented rise in the number of asylum seekers and refugees was seen in Europe in 2015, and it seems that numbers are not going to be reduced considerably in 2016. Several studies have tried to estimate risk of infectious diseases associated with migration but only very rarely these studies make a distinction on reason for migration. In these studies, workers, students, and refugees who have moved to a foreign country are all taken to have the same disease epidemiology. A common disease epidemiology across very different migrant groups is unlikely, so in this review of infectious diseases in asylum seekers and refugees, we describe infectious disease prevalence in various types of migrants. We identified 51 studies eligible for inclusion. The highest infectious disease prevalence in refugee and asylum seeker populations have been reported for latent tuberculosis (9-45%), active tuberculosis (up to 11%), and hepatitis B (up to 12%). The same population had low prevalence of malaria (7%) and hepatitis C (up to 5%). There have been recent case reports from European countries of cutaneous diphtheria, louse-born relapsing fever, and shigella in the asylum-seeking and refugee population. The increased risk that refugees and asylum seekers have for infection with specific diseases can largely be attributed to poor living conditions during and after migration. Even though we see high transmission in the refugee populations, there is very little risk of spread to the autochthonous population. These findings support the efforts towards creating a common European standard for the health reception and reporting of asylum seekers and refugees.