| Independently reported | |
| Formal definition | None agreed; a 2020 review states there is no consensus[1] |
|---|---|
| Measured from | Sending populations, not destination patient counts[2] |
| Destination-side share | No figure identified in any source |
| No band in this entry claims verification against a primary record. Every proportion below is measured among migrants in one country, never as a share of any destination’s patients. No provider-supplied figures are used. | |
Diaspora medical travel is travel for treatment by migrants and their descendants to a country of origin, rather than by people with no prior connection to the destination. A 2020 scoping review offers the working definition of migrants travelling to their country of origin and voluntarily using the healthcare there, as an act planned or organised in advance, while stating plainly that there has been no consensus as to the definition.[1] The literature also uses diaspora medical tourism, medical homecoming and medical returns for overlapping ideas.[1]
Usage in medical travel
The category matters because it cuts against the common picture of a medical traveller as a stranger buying treatment in an unfamiliar country. A scoping review by Lunt and colleagues for the OECD records that expatriates often have medical care on visits back to a home country, which would also show up as medical tourism, and gives the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom as an example.[3] A later United Kingdom study by the same group states that inward travel often involves either expatriates or people from nations with historic ties to the country.[4]
Where the behaviour has been measured, it has been measured among migrants rather than among a destination’s patients. An analysis of the 2001 California Health Interview Survey found that 15 per cent of long-staying Mexican immigrants and 11.5 per cent of shorter-staying Mexican immigrants had used medical, dental or prescription services in Mexico in the previous twelve months, compared with 5.4 per cent of United States-born Mexican Americans and 2.1 per cent of United States-born non-Latino white respondents.[2] The unweighted samples were 5,310, 3,171 and 31,818 respondents respectively, and the data year is 2001.[2]
What is not known
No source identified for this entry states what proportion of any destination country’s international patients are diaspora. The 2020 review reports that quantitative evidence has been scarce and gives no aggregate proportion of its own.[1] A figure measured among immigrants in a sending country answers a different question from a figure about a destination’s patient mix, and the two cannot be substituted for one another.
One frequently cited study does not support the diaspora point despite often being offered for it. Noree, Hanefeld and Smith analysed records of United Kingdom patients at five large private hospitals in Thailand for 2010 and titled the paper to say such patients are not who readers think they are, but the finding concerns the clinical and demographic profile, that most procedures were small and elective, and expatriates were excluded from the dataset by design.[5] It is not evidence about diaspora patients.
Related terms
Expatriate healthcare concerns care obtained where a person currently lives rather than in a country of origin, and statistical standards treat a long-term resident as a resident of the country they live in. Cultural familiarity is the motivation most often attributed to diaspora travel, and language is a recurring theme in the same literature.
See also
- Expatriate healthcare, the adjacent group and why statistical standards treat them as residents
- Medical travel and cultural familiarity, the motivation most often attributed to travel of this kind
- International patients, why residence and nationality diverge in patient counts
- Inbound medical tourism, the receiving-country view these patients are counted within
References
- Mathijsen A, Mathijsen FP. Diasporic medical tourism: a scoping review of quantitative and qualitative evidence. Globalization and Health, 16:27, 30 March 2020. Independently reported: peer-reviewed scoping review. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Wallace SP, Mendez-Luck C, Castaneda X. Heading South: Why Mexican Immigrants in California Seek Health Services in Mexico. Medical Care, 47(6), pages 662 to 669, June 2009. Independently reported: peer-reviewed analysis of survey data. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Lunt N, Smith R, Exworthy M, Green ST, Horsfall D, Mannion R. Medical Tourism: Treatments, Markets and Health System Implications: A scoping review. OECD, Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, 2011. Independently reported: commissioned scoping review. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Lunt N, Smith RD, Mannion R, Green ST, Exworthy M, Hanefeld J, Horsfall D, Machin L, King H. Implications for the NHS of inward and outward medical tourism. Health Services and Delivery Research, 2(2), January 2014. Independently reported: commissioned mixed-methods study. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
- Noree T, Hanefeld J, Smith R. UK medical tourists in Thailand: they are not who you think they are. Globalization and Health, 10:29, 6 May 2014. DOI 10.1186/1744-8603-10-29. Independently reported: analysis of hospital records; cited here for what it does and does not show. Retrieved 30 September 2026.
Sourcing note: no claim in this entry has been read from a primary register. All five sources are peer-reviewed or commissioned research and are independently reported. The proportions given are measured among immigrant populations in one country in stated years and are not estimates of any destination’s patient mix, which no source identified provides. One widely cited paper is included specifically to record that it does not support the claim commonly attributed to it.