Description

In 2022, more than 25,000 refugees were resettled in the U.S. Due to pre-migration violence, the resettlement process, and the daily stressors refugees face, managing chronic illnesses becomes difficult. Therefore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have constructed Syrian and Iraqi refugee health profiles that show high incidents of non-communicable diseases in the refugee population. Difficulty managing non-communicable diseases is a result of a lack of resources such as language barriers, difficulty navigating the healthcare system, and loss of social support. Due to the consequences of war where affected populations become vulnerable and at a higher risk of cognitive impairment, the risk and effects of dementia have not been explored in the refugee population. Our study in the UCSD Displacement & Health Lab aimed to explore knowledge, attitude, and behavior towards dementia in camped and un-camped refugees in San Diego, and it aimed to understand barriers to accessing aging healthcare services. Specifically, we investigated how refugees access health information and major sources of health education. We recruited 35 participants through flyers in community-based organizations and the snowball method who voluntarily agreed to engage in semi-structured interviews conducted in their native language, Arabic. We conducted four focus groups and 19 individual interviews. In seventeen cases, 11 had lived in camps and 12 had not. This presentation will focus on the results of multiple interviews. Audios were transcribed and translated using reverse translation for accuracy. The translated transcripts are coded for the major emerging themes that appear across the participants’ interviews and summaries are produced that point to the major challenges and barriers to managing their health. This exploratory qualitative research study reports the health status of the preliminary results to show that stress associated with the immigration and resettlement process leads to chronic illnesses. However, refugees are not being provided with important information about the symptoms, treatments, and prevention of these illnesses. This leads to a lack of knowledge regarding dementia and other chronic illnesses prevention. This research builds evidence-driven recommendations for future health management interventions that will lead to improvement in refugees’ physical, social, and emotional health and well-being.