313 Legal status for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia: progress toward better access to health services examined through aggregate administrative data

Abstract

Abstract OP 6: Health Policy 2, B308 (FCSH), September 3, 2025, 15:45 - 16:45 Aims Venezuelans represent one of the largest populations of displaced persons globally. In 2024, Colombia hosted 2.9 million Venezuelan migrants. In 2021, Colombia made one of the world’s important humanitarian steps. It issued a decree called “Estatuto Temporal de Protección para Migrantes Venezolanos” (ETPMV), expanding a path for Venezuelans then in Colombia to initiate registering for legal protected status. That status would allow migrants to work officially and access public services, including affiliating with a health insurer. This study evaluates how insurance affiliation and rates of utilization of health services among female Venezuelan migrants aged 0-44 years (a vulnerable population) vary by year before and after the ETPMV. Methods This study performs time-series and cross-sectional analyses of aggregate administrative data to assess how insurance affiliation and rates of utilization of health services. Additionally, we compare the affiliation and insurance claims tabulations of Colombians versus Venezuelans and males versus females before and after the ETPMV. Results Our findings show that health insurance affiliation rates among Venezuelan migrants have increased since the implementation of ETPMV, reaching 42% in females and 39% in males by 2023. Affiliated female migrants utilized formal services at seven times the rate of their unaffiliated counterparts. However, the absolute rates of health services used by female insured migrants aged 15-44 declined nine-fold from 2019 to 2023, falling from 2.212 to 0.244 services per insured women per year. Conlusions Although more progress is needed toward health equity, these findings suggest that the ETPMV has been a useful step towards integrating Venezuelans into Colombia’s social service system.