EU-Atlas: Dementia & Migration

The ‘EU-Atlas: Dementia & Migration’ is a project funded by the ‘Robert Bosch Stiftung’. It started in April 2019 and is carried out by the ‘Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE) Rostock/Greifswald’ in cooperation with the ‘Institute for Community Medicine’ from the University Medicine Greifswald.

Literature has highlighted that people with a migration background can often have a higher risk of developing dementia than the population without a migration background. Considering a significant rate of under-diagnosis of dementia in people with a migration background, it can be assumed that there is a large proportion of people with a migration background living with dementia not receiving adequate attention and appropriate care. There is also evidence that they face general dementia-related challenges but also specific problems because of language barriers, lack of knowledge about dementia, the healthcare system and its services, and how to receive help. Healthcare systems and professionals on the other side are often not equipped well enough to take care of this population and healthcare services might not be appropriate for the needs of people with a migration background living with dementia and their families.

This is a European and also worldwide phenomenon. Further aggravating this circumstance is a lack of research in the field of dementia and migration. Although research activity increased over the last years, it still is rather a niche topic. There is a lack of knowledge about the number of people with a migration background living with dementia in European countries and where they originate from, how they are being taken care of by the healthcare systems, and how they are being considered on a policy and guideline level.

The ‘EU-Atlas: Dementia & Migration’ starts here. With quantitative and document analyses as well as qualitative expert interviews a) estimations on the number of people with a migration background living with dementia and their countries of birth and current residence, b) evaluations of national dementia plans as well as care and treatment guidelines for people with dementia, and c) analyses of healthcare systems and services were conducted for all EU, EFTA, and UK countries. The results serve to raise awareness for a topic that deserves and needs more attention, provide information to policy makers, stakeholders, and people working in the fields of dementia and/or migration, and encourage further research.

The results show that people with a migration background living with dementia are a heterogeneous group of considerable size. All over the EU, EFTA, and UK countries, there are an estimated 531,000 people with a migration background living with dementia, with Germany, France, the UK, Switzerland, and Spain showing the highest numbers. It was further highlighted that the topic dementia and migration is only a minor topic in national plans, strategies, and guidelines for the care of people with dementia in most of these countries with less than half of the identified documents even referencing the topic migration. There is also a need for more inclusion of people with a migration background (with dementia) and improvement in current healthcare systems as well as an improvement of intercultural care needs in inpatient and outpatient care settings.

Although the EU-Atlas does not claim to be a benchmark for countries that defines what is appropriate and adequate (or not), it still provides detailed data and a thorough overview on the topic dementia and migration across European countries.

The ‘EU-Atlas: Dementia & Migration’ is published in a printed version in English, French, and German as well as an online version in English and German. The websites provide an interactive map that highlights the estimated numbers on people with a migration background living with dementia in the different countries and the opportunity to download the atlas.

The English version can be found here: https://www.dzne.de/en/europa-atlas/ The German version is available here: https://www.dzne.de/europa-atlas/