Description: Background: Health disparities between population declining and non-declining areas have received little attention, even though population decline is an established phenomenon in Europe. Selective migration, in which healthier people move out of deprived areas, can possibly explain worse health in declining regions. We assessed whether selective migration can explain the observed worse average health in declining regions as compared with non-declining regions in the Netherlands. Methods: Combining data from the Dutch Housing and Living Survey held in 2002 and 2006 with Dutch registry data, we studied the relation between health status and migration in a 5-year period at the individual level by applying logistic regression. In our sample of 130 600 participants, we compared health status, demographic and socioeconomic factors of movers and stayers from declining and non-declining regions. Results: People in the Netherlands who migrated are healthier than those staying behind [odds ratio (OR): 1.80]. This effect is larger for persons moving out of declining regions (OR: 1.76) than those moving into declining regions (OR: 1.47). When controlled for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, these effects are not significant. Moreover, only a small part of the population migrates out of (0.29%) or into (0.25%) declining regions in the course of 5 years. Conclusion: Despite the relation between health and migration, the effect of selective migration on health differences between declining and non-declining regions in the Netherlands is small. Both health and migration are complexly linked with socioeconomic and demographic factors.

Description: Background: European societies are rapidly ageing and becoming multicultural. We studied differences in overall and cause-specific mortality between migrants and non-migrants in Belgium specifically focusing on the older population. Methods: We performed a mortality follow-up until 2009 of the population aged 50 and over living in Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region by linking the 2001 census data with the population and mortality registers. Overall mortality differences were analysed via directly age-standardized mortality rates. Cause-specific mortality differences between non-migrants and various western and non-western migrant groups were analysed using Poisson regression models, controlling for age (model 1) and additionally controlling for socio-economic status and urban typology (model 2). Results: At older ages, most migrants had an overall mortality advantage relative to non-migrants, regardless of a lower socio-economic status. Specific migrant groups (e.g. Turkish migrants, French and eastern European male migrants and German female migrants) had an overall mortality disadvantage, which was, at least partially, attributable to a lower socio-economic status. Despite the general overall mortality advantage, migrants experienced higher mortality from infectious diseases, diabetes-related causes, respiratory diseases (western migrants), cardiovascular diseases (non-western female migrants) and lung cancer (western female migrants). Conclusion: Mortality differences between older migrants and non-migrants depend on cause of death, age, sex, migrant origin and socio-economic status. These differences can be related to lifestyle, social networks and health care use. Policies aimed at reducing mortality inequalities between older migrants and non-migrants should address the specific health needs of the various migrant groups, as well as socio-economic disparities.