Luigi Boggian

(IRSS / IRES)

will give a presentation on

Prescribing Equality: Minding the Gap in Anxiolytics and Antidepressants Prescriptions between Immigrants and Natives in Spain

Abstract: Fair access to pharmacological and non-pharmacological mental health treatments for immigrants is essential to reach health equity goals and to support immigrants’ integration. Several studies document country-specific inequalities between immigrants and natives in the prevalence and incidence of anxiety and depression disorders. Using administrative data on health and healthcare from Spain, this paper explores inequalities between natives and immigrant groups in doctors’ prescriptions for benzodiazepines (BZDs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Both disparities in drug access and in the quantity of medication consumed for BZDs and SSRIs are investigated. All analyses are adjusted to standard demographic and socioeconomic individual controls, areas of origin to define immigrant groups, and doctors’ diagnoses of health problems as a measure of needs for medications. Regression results show that all immigrant groups are less likely than natives to be prescribed BZDs and SSRIs, and this persists in particular among diagnosed individuals. In addition, I find that all immigrant groups receive fewer units of BZD and SSRI medications. By also controlling for time-varying predictors, including a vector of weather variables across provinces over the 12 months of 2018, I show that immigrants are less treated both in terms of number of monthly prescriptions and in terms of monthly defined daily doses, a standardised measure of drug consumption capturing the quantity of active principle.  Disparities in BZDs and SSRIs prescriptions can reflect barriers in drug access, differences in individual preferences, as well as cultural beliefs and stigmatisation of mental health services.