Research Abstract 1

Entering the retirement age of the baby boom generation, everyone has one thing on their mind: Health Care. The situation is no different in other countries. While many people take available and affordable health care for granted, it is an extremely serious necessity that people struggle with all over the world. We want to explore the state of Dutch health care, and because of our interest in the current immigration issues, specifically associate it to the immigrant populations in Amsterdam. More particularly, compare the availability, accessibility and affordability of health care to immigrants in Amsterdam in comparison to native Dutch citizens. We plan to utilize several research methods in creating a fairly good picture about this issue prior to in field research. Looking at health care facilities around Amsterdam, private and public, and comparing the patients that turn for health care at those facilities, as well as the known public reviews of those locations. Also aside from the actual numbers and statistics, is looking at the website of these locations, and eventually visiting them, and looking for indications of who their services are centered at. For example signs, information and brochures: are they in Dutch only? English? Several Languages? And same goes for their website. Also there are numerous websites as well as physical community centers in Holland and Amsterdam particularly dedicated to immigrant services. Talking with and researching them could lead us to the facilities that they suggest and point immigrants to for services, and for what reasons do they suggest certain facilities over others. Once in Amsterdam, we plan to visit the health care providers as well and immigration community centers, like mentioned earlier. Above everything we hope to do in person interviews and/or surveys with immigrants in Amsterdam and get their opinion on what they feel about their health care (availability, accessibility and affordability). And if any patterns arise from that, such as certain nationalities feel overwhelmingly different than others, we hope to explore those further as a subset in our research. While this is the general direction we wish to take our research, we are open to changing things around slightly as we further dive into the information we find and other things that indicate more of priority in the current social situation.