Background: Morbidity patterns among migrants vary with the type of migration and its scope for generation of health risk. Malaria, hepatitis, typhoid fever, and respiratory infection are found with a higher incidence among migrants. They have low rates of education and employment, lower salaries and less access to public health care services. This study was carried out to determine the socio­demographic profile and the health status of migrant labourers.

Methods & Material: A cross­sectional study was carried for a period of one year from 01 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 within the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) limits. MCC has six Urban Family Welfare Centre [UFWC]. A total of 855 migrant labourers from 675 families were included in the study. Informed written consent was obtained from the participants prior to the inclusion. Multi­stage sampling was designed to select the participants and a pre structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. SPSS 22 version software was used for statistical analysis and Chi­square test was used as test of significance for qualitative data. p­value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

Results: Majority of the subjects (76.7%) were in the age group <30 years, 85.8% were males, 52.6% were unmarried, 84.1% of them were illiterate, 89.6% were construction workers, 73.9% were earning between 1000 to 2000 rupees per week. Tobacco consumers were 52.51% and 63% were alcoholics. Out of these , 38.8% contracted illnesses within 3 months of coming to Mangaluru, 29.8% had past illness between 3 months to 1 year and 31.4% had past illness >1 year duration. Musculoskeletal disorders were the most common (48.3%) health problem. It was
observed that 42% of the migrants visited private facility, 31.1% utilized government facility, 26% took treatment directly from pharmacy while 1% visited traditional healer for illness. Significant association was observed between Health care utilized and reason for utilization (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: The study brought out that majority of respondents had migrated for economic reasons and lived in abysmal conditions doing physically demanding work. Their health was affected by the pattern of migration along with the ignorance of the available health facilities especially the public health services. 

Keywords: Migrants; Health Status; Socio­Demographic Profile; Health Services.