ArticleJournal of migration and health2026
Depression and anxiety symptoms in internally migrated women and men after the German unification: Baseline results from the German National Cohort Study (NAKO).
Article in Journal of migration and health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
backgroundInternal migration is a special case in Germany, with its history of two formerly divided and re-unified states. In this study, we examined mental health of women and men who migrated internally after the German reunification and compared them with each other and with the non-migrated population in Eastern and Western Germany.
methodsBaseline data of 161,795 participants (49.9 % women; internal migrants East-West = 7160 [4.4 %] and West-East = 3966 [2.5 %]) from the population-based German National Cohort were used. Internal migration was measured using information on previous (1988) and current residency. To assess mental health (i.e., current depression and anxiety symptoms), the Depression Module of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Generalised Anxiety Disorder Symptoms Scale (GAD-7) were applied. Group differences were assessed using analyses of covariance and Tukey's Tests. Strengths of effects were tested using omega squared.
resultsSignificant differences in levels of current depression and anxiety symptoms between the four groups were found for both women and men, but effect sizes were extremely small (ω² ≈ 0.000-0.002). East-West migrants reported slightly lower current depression symptoms (adj.
conclusionSubgroup analyses revealed group differences to depend on sex, but show negligible effect sizes, with internal migration only explaining less than 0.2 % of the variance for depression and anxiety symptoms. Internal migration alone is thus no substantial factor in explaining mental health differences. Future studies should use longitudinal data to determine temporal associations between internal migration and mental health.
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