Max Rady College of Medicine

Concept: Retention - Immigration / Migration related

 Printer friendly

Concept Description

Last Updated: 2022-12-08

Introduction

    concept/Social Determinants of Health-SDOH-Digital Library-Image.jpg This concept describes how Retention (related to immigration / migration) is operationalized for immigration-related research at MCHP. The concept includes the following sections:


    Definition: Retention is the ability of a province to retain the immigrants (internal and international) it has attracted within a defined period, usually three or five years. The retention rate is the proportion of newcomers to the province that are found still residing three or five years after the first start of coverage for interprovincial migrants, and the later of start of coverage or landing date for Immigrants.

Data Sources

Methods

    In the deliverable, The Diversity of Immigrants to Manitoba, Migration Dynamics and Basic Healthcare Service Use by Urquia et al. (2020), retention was operationalized by finding the landing date of immigrants living in Manitoba, reviewing the Manitoba Health Insurance Registry coverage episodes ending after landing, and then calculating the retention rate for permanent residents of Manitoba.

    NOTE: retention rates are based on a snapshot of registry coverage after the period of time in question, and do not require continuous coverage for the entire period. An immigrant is considered to be retained if they are in the province at the end of that period of time beginning at the later of landing date or start of coverage, even if they left the province during that period and returned before the end of the period. For consistency with other migration dynamics analyses, we ignore coverage gaps of 360 days or less.

    The following describes the basic algorithm in developing the methodology for this concept. It summarizes the SAS® code example that is provided in the SAS code and formats section below.

    1. create the immigrant cohort file from the IRCC crosswalk file for all immigrants found in Manitoba and sort by the unique IRCC identification number (IDNO);
    2. create a landing file containing the arrival and landing dates from the two IRCC legacy and current landing files;
    3. sort the landing file, and then merge with the immigrant cohort file using the unique IRCC identification number (IDNO);
    4. sort the landing file by scrambled PHIN and landing date to identify and retain the earliest landing record per scrambled PHIN;
    5. create a registry_coverage file using the MCHP REGCOV macro with a parameter for gapdays=360. Sort this file by scrambled PHIN, coverage start date and coverage end date;
    6. merge the landing file with the registry_coverage file to identify coverage episodes during or after landing;
    7. keep one summary record of coverage episodes per individual scrambled PHIN, checking for 3- and 5-year retention periods in any episode and ensuring they are within the study time period;
    8. produce output tables summarizing 3- and 5-year retention rates by landing year.

Research Findings

Cautions / Limitations

    The following limitations were identified during development of this concept:

    • Retention rates are based on a snapshot of registry coverage after the period of time in question, and do not require continuous coverage for the entire period. An immigrant is considered to be retained if they are in the province at the end of that period of time beginning at the later of landing date or start of coverage, even if they left the province during that period and returned before the end of the period. For consistency with other migration dynamics analyses, we ignore coverage gaps of 360 days or less.
    • The threshold to measure retention varies in the literature. Users may need to perform their own literature review to justify a cut-off point.

SAS code and formats 

Related concepts 

Related terms 

References 

  • Urquia M, Walld R, Prior H, Detillieux G, Eze N, Koseva I. The Diversity of Immigrants to Manitoba, Migration Dynamics and Basic Healthcare Service Use. Winnipeg, MB: Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, 2020. [Report] [Summary] [Additional Materials] (View)
  • Urquia ML, Walld R, Wanigaratne S, Eze ND, Azimaee M, McDonald JT, Guttmann A. Linking national immigration data to provincial repositories: The case of Canada. Int J Popul Data Sci 2021;6(1):1412. [Abstract] (View)


Request information in an accessible format

If you require access to our resources in a different format, please contact us:

We strive to provide accommodations upon request in a reasonable timeframe.

Contact us

Manitoba Centre for Health Policy
Community Health Sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine,
Rady Faculty of Health Sciences,
Room 408-727 McDermot Ave.
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3E 3P5 Canada

204-789-3819