Health and Quality of Life of Bangladeshi Migrants in Melbourne—An Analysis with Four Multi-Attribute Utility and Three Subjective Wellbeing Instruments

Abstract

The aim is to investigate the health and quality of life (QoL) of Bangladeshi migrants using 7 Multi-Attribute instruments. Participants for this empirical study comprised Bangladeshi migrants living in Melbourne. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey. Respondents who completed the questionnaire were aged between 18 and 65 years old. Over 50% of the participants possessed excellent or very good health and 83% did not have any significant illness. Both males and females were found to be more overweight but less obese compared with the Australian population. Over 70% had low and 13% had high or very high levels of psychological distressas measured by the K10. The lifestyle of the migrants is distinct—about 80% never drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes. The recently developed AQoL-8D was the most sensitive to psychological distress, the personal wellbeing index and with BMI and had the highest correlation with EQ-5D and SF-6D within MAU instruments. Individual utility scores varied significantly at the individual level. The significant loss of QoL with increasing obesity and psychological distress are areas of concern for policy makers.