Migration, Public Health, and Low-Threshold Health Services in Italy: A Culturally-Oriented Approach for Roma Communities

Özet

Public health authorities and healthcare providers are often unable to overcome their rigid bureaucratic limitsand offer low-threshold health services to vulnerable ethnic minorities, such as the Roma communities. Romapeople frequently face institutional, juridical, social, economic, and cultural obstacles in the course of their access to appropriate, effective, and high-quality healthcare. In Italy, Roma people experience difficulties such ascultural constraints and discrimination while accessing health services. For this reason, in recent years, publichealthcare institutions have been experimenting with innovative approaches aimed at overcoming inequalities and discriminations associated with the access to health care through cooperation between private andpublic health and the active involvement of the Roma communities. The implementation of low-threshold services have specific requirements such as; a strong commitment toward public health at the national, regional,and local levels; joint local networks of well-trained healthcare professionals, non-medical personnel, and civilsociety organizations; tailor-made projects addressing Roma with respect to the public health facilities; monitoring the access to the healthcare facilities of Roma; promoting direct interaction between healthcare providers and Roma; cultural mediation; actively involving Roma communities in overcoming the mistrust of andprejudice toward healthcare providers and medical facilities; promoting a healthy lifestyle in Roma householdsby fostering routine screenings, immunization, and medical appointments and respecting medical pharmacological therapies. To improve the Roma communities’ health in Italy, we have proposed a culturally-orientedmodel that offers a methodological approach beyond prejudice to improve access to healthcare.