Erratum: Health in Germany: Establishment of a population-based health panel

[This corrects the article on p. 2,21 in vol. 9, PMID: 38282983.].

Corrigendum: Health in Germany: Establishment of a population-based health panel

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.25646/11992.2.].

'German Health Update Fokus (GEDA Fokus)': Study Protocol of a Multilingual Mixed-mode Interview Survey among Residents with Croatian, Italian, Polish, Syrian or Turkish Citizenship in Germany

BACKGROUND

Germany has a long history of migration. In 2020, more than every fourth person had a statistically defined, so-called 'migration background' in Germany, meaning that the person or at least one of their parents was born with a citizenship other than German. People with a history of migration are not represented proportionately to the population within public health monitoring at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), thus impeding differentiated analyses on migration and health. In order to develop strategies to improve the inclusion of people with a history of migration in health surveys, we conducted a feasibility study in 2018. Lessons learned were implemented in the health interview survey GEDA Fokus which was conducted among people with selected citizenships representing the major migrant groups in Germany.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of GEDA Fokus was to collect comprehensive data on the health status and social, migration-related, and structural factors among people with selected citizenships in order to enable differentiated explanations on the associations between migration-related aspects and their impact on migrant health.

METHODS

GEDA Fokus was an interview survey among people with Croatian, Italian, Polish, Syrian, or Turkish citizenship living in Germany aged 18 - 79 years, with a targeted sample size of 1,200 participants per group. The gross sample of 33,436 people was drawn out of the residents' registration offices of 99 German municipalities based on citizenship. Sequentially, multiple modes of administration were offered. The questionnaire was available for self-administration (online and paper-based); in bigger municipalities, personal or phone interviews were possible later on. Study documents and the questionnaire were bilingual, in German and the respective translation language depending on the citizenship. Data collection took place from November 2021 until May 2022.

RESULTS

Overall, 6,038 respondents participated in the survey, 49.4% were female. The median age was 39 years, and the median duration of residence in Germany was 10 years, with 19.7% of the sample being born in Germany. The overall response rate was 18.4% (AAPOR response rate 1) and was 6.8% higher in the municipalities where personal interviews were offered (19.3% vs. 12.5%). Overall, 78.2% administered the questionnaire on their own, while 21.9% took part in a personal interview. A total of 41.9% answered the questionnaire in German language only, 16.7% exclusively used the translation, and 41.4% used both languages in the bilingual version of the questionnaire.

CONCLUSIONS

Offering different modes of administration, as well as multiple study languages, enabled us to recruit a heterogeneous sample of people with a history of migration. The data collected will allow differentiated analyses of the role and interplay of migration-related and social determinants of health and their impact on the health status of people with selected citizenships.

CLINICALTRIAL