Who are the persons living in insecure conditions?
When examining the question of people living in marginal situations or in insecure conditions, experience shows that there are often misunderstandings in the use of certain words and concepts. Due to the different situations in Europe, it seems that some definitions and concepts need to be clarified because they have different policy implications for decision makers in the health sector. Exclusion / Marginal situation: In the legal sense, there are not many excluded people in Europe. Only individuals who are illegally resident in a country cannot generally benefit from the social protection system. However, during the last ten years, the situation has dramatically changed and the definition of “exclusion” has been often extended to a broader definition, which includes quite a high number of persons living in difficult situations 1 . Who are these persons? – The people “without”: persons living in a country without permission and therefore without official documents, without permanent h
