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Journal of Primary Health Care Journal of Primary Health Care Society
Journal of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Primary care access barriers faced by immigrant populations in their host countries: a systematic review protocol aiming to construct a conceptual framework using root cause analysis to capture ‘what leads to what’

Tanvir C. Turin 1 2 6 , Nashit Chowdhury 1 , Mahzabin Ferdous 1 , Ruksana Rashid 1 , Marcus Vaska 3 , Nahid Rumana 4 , Nafiza Rahman 5 , Mohammad Lasker 5 , Mohammad Z. Chowdhury 1 2
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

1 Department of Family Medicine, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, 3330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 4N1, Canada

2 Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, 3280 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 4Z6, Canada

3 Knowledge Resource Service, Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Alberta Health Services, 1331 - 29 Street NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 4N2, Canada

4 Sleep Center, Foothills Medical Centre, University of Calgary, 1403 - 29 St NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 2TN, Canada

5 Community-based citizen researcher, Calgary, AB, Canada

6 Corresponding author. Email: chowdhut@ucalgary.ca

Journal of Primary Health Care 12(2) 139-148 https://doi.org/10.1071/HC20006
Published: 11 May 2020

Journal Compilation © Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners 2020 This is an open access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Understanding primary care access or health service utilisation challenges among immigrant communities is important for tailoring services to community needs, which is the core of precision population health.

AIM: We aim to inventory the primary care access barriers faced by immigrant communities through a comprehensive systematic review and develop a conceptual framework to explain the barriers, using a root cause analysis approach.

METHODS: Academic databases of primary research articles and grey literature will be searched using appropriate keywords. Relevant information will be extracted into tabular format from finally selected literature. Our proposed approach of framing the barriers to identify the root causes is adapted from the root cause analysis method, which is the process of identifying and understanding the underlying causes to discover the root causes of problems.

RESULTS: The study will produce a systematic, quantified and documented list of the barriers faced by immigrants in a solution-oriented approach.

DISCUSSION: The proposed research, as a first step towards determining possible mitigation strategies for health-care access by immigrants, will provide the background needed to devise and test tailored interventions to improve future access to health care for immigrants. We will follow the integrated knowledge translation or community engagement knowledge mobilization approach, where we are engaged with community-based citizen researchers from the inception of our programme. We plan to disseminate the results of our review through meetings with key stakeholders and social media outreach, followed by journal publications and presentations on relevant platforms.

KEYwords: Primary care; immigrants; barriers; solutions; root causes


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