The economic burden of immigrants with HIV/AIDS: When to say no?

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Résumé (français)

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Résumé (anglais)

The Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) of 2001 outlines the conditions under which individuals may be granted or denied admission to Canada. The Act stipulates that applications for residence will be rejected if an applicant’s health is likely to generate excessive demand on Canadian health or social services. The purpose of this paper is to assess the thresholds used to define excessive demand and to apply these thresholds to persons with HIV/AIDS. Three findings are reported: firstly, the current threshold for excessive demand is too low and a statistically more appropriate threshold is three-fold greater; secondly, there is an inverse relationship between HIV/AIDS disease progression and healthcare costs and finally, comparison of disease cost estimates to new thresholds for inadmissibility allows classification to depend on individual characteristics, including age, sex and health status, and the time horizon over which each applicant’s projected demand is assessed.