Anthropological Research Study of Migrants at the First Aid and Reception Center (CPSA) of Lampedusa.

A medical anthropology research study was conducted in 2015 at the First Aid and Reception Center (CPSA) on the island of Lampedusa (Italy) as part of a larger health project carried out by the National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (INMP) in Rome. The study investigated the health conditions of migrants at the moment of their departure and on arrival, their migration journey, and their life plans and expectations for the future. The ethnographic method adopted for the study was based on participant observation and on data collection by means of a semi-structured interview (51 items simultaneously translated by cultural mediators into Tigrinya, Arabic, English, and French). Interviewed were 112 adults (82 men and 30 women) from the Gulf of Guinea and the Horn of Africa. The cooccurrence of forced migration and economic concerns was confirmed; violence and torture were constants throughout the migration journey in 81% of cases. Ethnographic data detailed the timing, countries, settings, perpetrators, and types of violence endured. A combination of qualitative and quantitative findings can both facilitate the identification of fragile health conditions and support clinicians in the diagnostic, therapeutic, and rehabilitation pathways. These data illustrate the importance and feasibility of multidisciplinary collaboration even in emergency contexts.

Outcomes of Culturally Tailored Dietary Intervention in the North African and Bangladeshi Diabetic Patients in Italy.

Immigrants show higher adjusted diabetes prevalence than Italians, especially among South-East Asians followed by North and Sub-Saharan Africans. Diabetes progression is influenced by food behaviors, and diet control is a critical aspect in disease management. Food habits have many cultural and symbolic implications. Guidelines recommend that every patient should receive appropriate self-management education according to cultural and socioeconomic characteristics. This study aims to test whether a customized diet and transcultural mediator's support can improve immigrants' food habits. A pre-post quali-quantitative study was conducted among 20-79-year-old Bangladeshi and North African diabetic immigrants. The INMP transcultural mediator, an expert in the social and health care field, actively participates in clinical activity by decoding linguistic and cultural needs expressed by the foreigner patient. Five culturally tailored dietary profiles were designed according to international diabetes guidelines and adjusted to traditional food habits. Data were collected with two different semi-structured questionnaires. Changes in food consumption were assessed through McNemar's test, while paired Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test was used to analyze pre and post intervention. Fifty-five patients were enrolled. At follow-up, cereals, meat, and potatoes intake significantly improved, and the number of adequate dietary habits for each patient increased significantly. Transcultural mediator support was 90% positively evaluated. Adherence to dietary control is favorably influenced by a transcultural intervention, which is based on clinical and socio-cultural criteria, in compliance with patient's lifestyles.

Anthropological study on Chagas Disease: Sociocultural construction of illness and embodiment of health barriers in Bolivian migrants in Rome, Italy.

INTRODUCTION: Chagas Disease (CD) is endemic in many Latin-American countries, Bolivia in particular. It is now spreading in Italy as a host country for transcontinental migrants and becoming an emerging health problem. This anthropological action-research, as part of a wider medical project on Neglected Tropical Diseases, has the purpose of analyzing the sociocultural construction of CD and its representation in Bolivian people living in Rome as well as barriers, such as the stigma about the illness, to access the National Health Service for those potentially affected. METHODS: The ethnographic study was carried out from 2016 to 2018 by a medical anthropologist at the National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (INMP) on 72 Bolivian migrants (47 women and 25 men) living in Rome. The study was carried out through: a territorial mapping of Bolivian networks and communities aimed at recruiting people, participant observation, and application of semi-structured and unstructured interviews. The interviews were hold in Spanish and proposed to all participants before or during medical examination, or during events organized by the Bolivian community in Rome. The interview consisted of 16 items and covered four macro areas: personal and migration history, health status, access to the Italian National Health Service and knowledge about CD; plus 5 items for those who received a diagnosis of Chagas Disease in Italy. RESULTS: The sociocultural construction and the deep stigma about the illness built by participants and their families could hinder both diagnosis and treatment. Institutional barriers also contributed to reduce adherence to screening tests: often, opening hours of the outpatient clinic were incompatible with participants' precarious employments. To guarantee participant's access to public health services and their adherence to the diagnostic protocol, we implemented a profound revision of our cultural and institutional approach to them. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis evidenced the limitations of the conventional approach applied by the Italian National Health Service to this migrant community, such as the absence of socio-cultural and linguistics competences that can help understanding patients' perception and representation of the illness. The multidisciplinary approach instead-with clinicians using the ethnographic results to adjust their work to the participants' needs-was a successful attempt to ensure therapeutic alliance.

Influence of post-migration living difficulties on post-traumatic symptoms in Chinese asylum seekers resettled in Italy.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about mental health and resettlement difficulties of Chinese asylum seekers fleeing China due to religious persecutions. AIM: This study explores main post-migration living difficulties (PMLD) in this population, with a focus on their role in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). METHODS: A total of 67 patients (95.52% women, mean age 34.75 ± 7.63) were included in the study. The Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ) was used to assess PTSD, the List of Migration Experiences (LiMEs) was used for pre-migration and post-migration experiences (potentially traumatic events as well as living difficulties). The t-test was used to examine the differences in pre-migration and post-migration mean scores. Logistic regression was used to test the effect of pre-migration traumatic experiences (PMTE) and most frequent PMLD on having a PTSD. RESULTS: A total of 49 patients scored above the HTQ cut-off score for PTSD. As expected, traumatic experiences were concentrated in the pre-migration phase, while living difficulties were present in both phases but more frequently in the post-migration period. PMTE were significantly related to PTSD (OR 1.29, p = .01). However, three PMLD ('Feeling that you do not know where you will lend up tomorrow', 'Loneliness and boredom' and 'Not being able to find work') showed a significant interaction with PMTE, suggesting that their presence in the post-migration phase has a modulation effect by increasing the likelihood of PTSD. CONCLUSION: This study extends to Chinese asylum seekers the previous evidence that PMLD have a significant role in the likelihood to have a PTSD after landing in the host country.

Clinical Practice and Knowledge in Caring: Breastfeeding Ties and the Impact on the Health of Latin-American Minor Migrants.

In the context of the project "Clinical and social evaluation of medical practices in the treatment of infectious diseases in pediatrics for children of vulnerable population" carried out in 2013 by a multidisciplinary team at the National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (NIHMP) in Rome, a study in medical anthropology on the incorporation of illnesses that mothers feel they transmit to their children through breastfeeding was conducted. The results of the anthropological study, that targeted 34 children and adolescents from the age of 3 to the age of 17, all immigrants from Latin America residing in Italy, show that some forms of suffering in minors are described by women as being connected to factors such as susto ("fright"), coraje, muina, enojo ("anger") and mal de ojo ("evil eye"), and are in relation to a specific cultural frame. It is clear that barriers that prevent the access to the healthcare system must be removed, barriers that are accentuated by linguistic and cultural incomprehension, through adequate multidisciplinary healthcare settings such as the one we are presenting, composed of a medical doctor, an anthropologist and a cultural mediator.