Abstract

As the world witnesses an increase in different displacements of individuals for various reasons, ranging from wars, civil conflicts, human rights violations, and natural disasters, refugees and asylum seekers, who are among those forcibly displaced, continue to face challenges in access to health care services in host countries. The topic of barriers to health care has been widely researched, with a large body of literature on refugees' interactions with health care systems. However, there is limited literature on the perceptions of Eritrean, Sudanese, and Somali refugees and asylum seekers' experience with healthcare access in host countries. Therefore, this thesis aims to address this gap by focusing on the perceived barriers to health care access in Cairo, Egypt, among Eritrean, Sudanese, and Somali refugees and asylum seekers. This study utilized a mixed-methods approach; quantitative data were collected by distributing the Perceived Access to Healthcare Questionnaire (PAHQ) to a sample of 233 individuals. Focus group discussions were conducted with 30 individuals from the three communities to gather the qualitative data. Quantitative data were analyzed using R software, and deductive, inductive thematic analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data. Results showed that participants faced barriers in approachability, acceptability, affordability, availability, and accommodation dimensions of healthcare access. Results also showed that gender, age, and nationality were significant predictors of perceived barriers, while refugee status was not a significant predictor.

School

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department

Institute of Global Health & Human Ecology

Degree Name

MA in Global Public Health

Graduation Date

Fall 2-15-2026

Submission Date

1-26-2026

First Advisor

Dr. Sungsoo Chun

Committee Member 1

Fayrouz Ashour

Committee Member 2

Ahmed Mandil

Committee Member 3

Anwar Abd Elnaser

Extent

114 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Approval has been obtained for this item

Disclosure of AI Use

Code/algorithm generation and/or validation

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