Croatia can clearly be described as a country of emigration. The history of emigration originated in the 15th century. Larger emigration movements towards Western Europe (e.g. to Germany, Belgium, or France) occurred, for example, between 1890 and 1914 as well as from 1964 to the early 1970s¹. Simultaneously, larger groups of people also immigrated to Croatia, in the past mainly from economically disadvantaged parts of Yugoslavia¹, but in the second half of the 20th century also from the Middle East². In 2013, the largest migrant groups were from Bosnia Herzegovina (499,100), Serbia (118,100), Slovenia (47,800), Montenegro (39,400), and North Macedonia (20,700)³. The migrant population (born abroad, 674,100 to 518,000) and the proportion of migrants in the total population (14.6% to 12.5%) decreased slightly between 1995 and 2019⁴.

There are 105,800 people with a migration background aged 65 or older. Of those, approx. 4,200 are estimated to exhibit some form of dementia. Calculations show the most affected migrant groups presumably originate from Serbia (approx. 2,400), Italy (approx. 200), Slovenia (approx. 200), Hungary (approx. 200), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (approx. 200)⁵.

Although no national dementia plan could be identified for Croatia, clinical guidelines for the pharmacological treatment of dementia from 2015 were found. This document has a volume of seven pages and deals with the starting point for the development of the strategy (epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease, obligations of the Republic of Croatia, mission of the Croatian Association for Alzheimer's Disease), the strategic framework (purpose, main goals, principles of the strategy), and the strategic areas in the fight against Alzheimer's Disease. The strategic areas include early diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, availability of treatment such as anti-dementia drugs, access to social benefits and services, development of systematic support for patients and their families, and destigmatisation. However, the guidelines do no refer to the topic of migration⁶.