{"id":20432,"date":"2024-09-19T14:11:32","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T18:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ices.on.ca\/?post_type=journal_article&#038;p=20432"},"modified":"2025-09-23T09:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T13:14:15","slug":"language-ability-and-virtual-mental-healthcare-utilisation-among-immigrant-and-refugee-youth","status":"publish","type":"journal_article","link":"https:\/\/www.ices.on.ca\/fr\/publications\/journal-articles\/language-ability-and-virtual-mental-healthcare-utilisation-among-immigrant-and-refugee-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Language ability and virtual mental healthcare utilisation among immigrant and refugee youth: a population-based cohort study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Background and objectives<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The widespread adoption of virtual care during the pandemic may not have been uniform across populations, including among paediatric immigrants and refugees. We sought to examine the association between virtual mental healthcare utilisation and immigration factors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Methods<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0This population-based cohort study of immigrants and refugees (3\u201317 years) used linked health administrative databases in Ontario, Canada (March 2020 to December 2021). Exposures included self-reported Canadian language ability (CLA) at arrival and immigration category (economic class, family class and refugee). The primary outcome was the visit modality (inperson\/virtual) measured as a rate of physician-based mental healthcare visits. Modified Poisson regression model estimated adjusted rate ratios (aRRs) with 95% CIs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Results<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Among 22\u2009420 immigrants, 12\u2009135 (54%) did not have CLA (economic class: 6310, family class: 2207, refugees: 3618) and 10\u2009285 did (economic class; 6293, family class: 1469, refugees: 2529). The cohort\u2019s mean age (SD) was 12.0 (4.0) years and half (50.3%) were female. Of 71\u2009375 mental health visits, 47\u2009989 (67.2%) were delivered virtually. Compared with economic class immigrants with CLA (referent), refugees with and without CLA had a lower risk of virtual care utilisation (CLA: aRR 0.89, 95% CI 0.86 to 0.93; non-CLA: aRR 0.80, 95% CI 0.77 to 0.83), as did family class immigrants with CLA (aRR 0.96, 95% CI 0.92 to 0.99). No differences in virtual care utilisation were observed among economic class immigrants with CLA and other immigrant groups.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusions<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Language ability at arrival and immigration category are associated with virtual mental healthcare utilisation. Whether findings reflect user preference or inequities in accessibility, particularly for refugees and those without CLA at arrival, warrants further study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Background and objectives\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The widespread adoption of virtual care during the pandemic may not have been uniform across populations, including among paediatric immigrants and refugees. We sought to examine the association between virtual mental healthcare utilisation and immigration factors. Methods\u00a0\u2014\u00a0This population-based cohort study of immigrants and refugees (3\u201317 years) used linked health administrative databases in Ontario, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","migration-helper-automated":[],"migration-manual":[],"topic":[62,34,18],"migration-helper-qa-sample-set":[],"class_list":["post-20432","journal_article","type-journal_article","status-publish","hentry","topic-health-services-research","topic-mental-health-and-addictions","topic-racialized-communities"],"acf":{"citation":"Mohamud H, Toulany A, Grandi SM, Altaf A, Fu L, Strauss R, Saunders N. <em>Archives of Disease in Childhood<\/em>. 2024; Sep 19 [Epub ahead of print].","source_url":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/archdischild-2023-326507","ices_scientist":[13136,1236,1348],"site":[6733],"research_program":[6744],"news_release":"","journal_article":"","atlas":"","research_report":"","infographic":"","video":"","downloads":null,"links":null,"sitecore_item_id":"","sitecore_item_name":"","sitecore_field_values":"","previous_url":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>ICES | Language ability and virtual mental healthcare utilisation among immigrant and refugee youth: a population-based cohort study<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Background and objectives\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The widespread adoption of virtual care during the pandemic may not have been uniform across populations, including among\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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