Immigrant health

Despite their relative socioeconomic disadvantage, infants born to Mexican immigrant mothers in the United States have health outcomes that are similar to non-Hispanic whites and better than blacks. This pattern has been termed the epidemiologic paradox because it challenges prevailing understandings of racial/ethnic disparities in health. Although the epidemiologic paradox is well-documented, the mechanisms underlying the paradox remains poorly understood. We pool vital statistics data from Mexico and the U.S. to disentangle to what extent variations in birth outcomes between Mexican immigrants and non-migrants in Mexico are attributable to (1) migrant health selectivity and (2) other forms of migrant selectivity, namely age and region of origin. To do so, we will first determine whether infants born to Mexican immigrants in the US have lower rates of birth weight and pre-term births than the entire population in Mexico. Next, we will determine whether the health advantage of Mexican immigrants (over the Mexican population) persists once we age standardize the rates of low birth weight and pre-term births. Third, we will limit our sample of non-migrants in Mexico to those living in communities with high levels of migration and compare their birth outcomes with those of Mexican immigrants in the United States.

We aim to investigate the probabilities of transition among health states for middle-aged and older adults and examine how they vary by age, sex and immigrant status. The longitudinal dimension acquired by the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement (SHARE) allows us to investigate how successful is the immigrants’ aging with respect to natives. We hypothesize that immigrants are more likely to experience a deterioration of health during aging, that is, the probability that a foreign born living in specific countries will move from a “healthy state” to a “sick state” is higher with respect to non-immigrants, especially for older adults. The health measures included self-rated health, depression, chronic diseases and ADLs.
Preliminary results show that transition probabilities varied by age, gender and immigrant status. In almost all domains of health, the probability that older immigrants’ health status deteriorated was higher with respect to natives, even if results emphasize a large heterogeneity found among immigrants’ groups.
The analyses of the changes over time in different aspects of immigrants health status is very interesting for policy makers so that clearly defined public interventions can be adopted to improve their health and planning relevant health services.

Although immigrant women are less likely to smoke compared to Non-hispanic whites and U.S. natives born of same ethnic origin, previous studies indicate that acculturation is positively associated with maternal smoking during pregnancy. The increase in maternal smoking during pregnancy with acculturation is often attributed to the downward trajectory within the segmented assimilation framework. However, theoretical frameworks (e.g., acculturation) that emphasize cultural explanations have used a “zero-sum game” approach which does not provide a comprehensive understanding of complex acculturative processes of the immigrant experience. To incorporate the structural factors in the context of reception in understanding maternal smoking during pregnancy of Mexican-origin women in the United States, we draw from the emerging scholarship on how residential segregation affects health. Our preliminary results support the protective effect of immigrant enclaves for Mexican foreign-born women. On the other hand, interaction with non-Hispanic white at the contextual level is associated with the increased odd of maternal smoking during pregnancy.

Mexican immigrants systematically exhibit better mental health than U.S. born residents, including those with Mexican heritage. The robust finding is often attributed to the healthy migrant hypothesis. This argument, however, falsely presumes that the Mexican and U.S. populations have similar mental health traits. In this paper, we analyze data from a rare, nationally-representative sample of Mexicans surveyed in Mexico prior to migration and after arrival in the United States. Tests of within-person change allow us to assess 1) how migrants are selected on mental health and 2) how the process of migration changes mental health. We pay particular attention to gender differences in these processes. Our findings contradict the positive welfare interpretation of the mental health advantage observed among migrants. We observe that migration actually worsens the mental health of migrants and more so among women. We find no evidence of positive selection on mental health, further countering the “healthy migrant” hypothesis. Gender differences are discussed in the context of literature on migrant welfare.