Analysis of international physician migration to the United States

Objective:
This study is to examine the influence of macroeconomic factors on international physician emigration from throughout the world to the.

Method:

Least squares regression was conducted to examine the factors of international physician emigration by analyzing data on the medical brain drain which was collected on country-level from the World Bank. The official languages were ascertained from the United Nation. Additional macroeconomic characteristics for each country were retrieved from the world development indicators of the World Bank. The dependent variable was physician emigration rate among the subject countries to the. Independent variables included official language, physician per 1,000 people, health expenditure per capita, and death rate in the physicians’ countries of origin. The sample consists of 192 countries from which physicians immigrated to the from 1991 to 2004.

Results:
Physician emigration rates to the United States from the Latin America and Caribbean regions was found to be the highest among other continental regions after controlling for year, official language, and developing country status. Preliminary results suggest that official language of the country of origin affects physicians’ likelihood to immigrate to the. Physicians from English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries were more likely to immigrate to the Unites States than those from other countries. Meanwhile, physicians from developing countries were less likely to immigrate to the.

Conclusions:
Language and country development status affect physician emigration rate to the. The present results indicate that the physicians most likely to immigrate to the are those from the countries with a lower per capita, unemployment rate, death rate, and physician ratio per 1000 people. Physicians from Latin American and the Caribbean countries were the most likely to immigrate to the. Giving the importance of global physician emigration, the medical society may need to consider win-win strategies for future international cooperation aimed at enhancing medical brain circulation.