People who have moved to Finland from abroad have suffered much more from the Covid epidemic than others, according to the results of a recent study by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare THL.
When compared to the rest of the population, immigrants were more likely to report that their physical health, mental health and quality of life had diminished as a result of the epidemic.
The study also found that the Covid crisis caused more problems for immigrants than for the wider population as a whole, as people in the immigrant community reported difficulties getting to sleep, an increased sense of loneliness and isolation, and diminished hopes for the future.
Nearly a quarter of the immigrants who took part in the study said that the coronavirus epidemic had worsened their financial situation quite a lot or very much. The corresponding proportion of the total population was just six percent.
"This is a worrying finding, considering that the economic situation of immigrants has often been worse than average compared to the entire population, even before the coronavirus epidemic," THL research manager Natalia Skogberg wrote in a press release announcing the research results.
"Difficult experiences often accumulate for people who are already in a weaker social position."
The report further found that loneliness increased during the pandemic for 36 percent of immigrants compared to 28 percent for the total population, while just six percent of foreigners and only two percent of the wider population said that loneliness had decreased.
Some 38 percent of immigrants reported that their hopes for the future had diminished as a result of the epidemic and its effects, compared to 30 percent of the general population. Hope for the future, meanwhile, increased for 20 percent of immigrant respondents and 7 percent of the total population.
"This can tell a lot about resilience in crisis situations. Those who have experienced crisis situations in the past may feel more strongly that this can also be overcome," Skogberg said.
The study also found that about 15 percent of people who had moved to Finland said they had first-hand experience of discrimination during the coronavirus epidemic.
The results of the THL report are based on a study entitled Impact of coronavirus epidemic on wellbeing among foreign born population (MigCOVID). The study was conducted as a questionnaire from a population register of randomly selected foreign-born people who participated in the FinMonik study conducted abroad in 2018–2019 (Welfare Study Abroad).