Migration and health

Migration is a key component to reduce fertility level and improve the socio-economic status, reproductive knowledge and behaviour. However in developing countries migration is mainly induced by poverty. Study explore whether male migrants have better reproductive health knowledge and practices compared to non-migrants. Using data from NFHS-3 (2005-06) we have restricted our study to male population aged 15-54 years who are currently married and have at least one child. Bivariate and Multivariate technique analysed that relatively recent migrant (staying less than10 years) married male have better knowledge compared to non-migrant in terms of ovulatory cycle, modern methods of contraception, drinking pattern of water, place of birth. Result shows two fifth of recent migrant have correct knowledge of ovulatory cycle compared to 17% non- migrant. However migrants staying more than 10 years are even poorer than non migrant. Completed more than secondary schooling, belonging richest quintile have better reproductive knowledge

The RTIs/STIs and their complications are among the most important causes of illness and death for women (WHO, 2005). The morbidity from STI in women aged 15-45 years, ranks second only to maternal causes. Further, vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in general, and HIV/AIDS in particular, is the most widely studied topic in the field of migration, and health research. However, overwhelming importance is given to male migrants, truck drivers, or female sex workers in such studies. Very few have studied migration and women’s health issues. Therefore, the key issue is why and how female migrants become vulnerable to RTIs/STIs when they migrate to urban areas and how they treat their health problems, and which facilities they prefer to visit for their treatment. Thus the present paper tries to understand the perception and treatment seeking behaviour of female migrants for RTIs/STIs in slum setting. It also discusses about their access to health facilities and preference of health facility for specific problems. An attempt is made to test the hypotheses that female migrants with longer duration of stay have high access to health facility. The paper is based on quantitative data collected from 585 female migrants and few in-depth interviews conducted in eight densely populated slums of Mumbai, India.

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.

The aim of this study is to analyze mortality in relation to domestic migration. Swedish administrative registry data was used, and all Swedish born residents alive at the end of the year 2000 were included, 7,74 million people.

Migration was measured over the life course and defined as crossing the border of the birth municipality. This is the first time smaller geographic areas than birth counties has been analyzed for Sweden. We use three main groups of migration status: non-migrants, migrants and return migrants. Return migrants have lived part of their lives in another municipality but has returned to their birth municipality later.

Mortality was followed-up for the period 2001–2010. There were 833 000 deaths recorded. Measured by standardized mortality ratios, and for the entire country, domestic migrants had significantly low mortality, and non-migrants had significantly elevated mortality. Men who were classified as return migrants had the same elevated mortality as non-migrants. Among women return migrants had average mortality.

The variation in mortality by migration status differed by birth cohort and type of municipality. Preliminary findings from regression modeling suggest that education contributes to mortality differences by migration status in Sweden.

Health is another important dimension of welfare that may be impacted- being left behind and lead to potential health problems. It becomes important to see that, ‘What effects does migration of husbands has on the wives that they left behind?’ ‘Are the wives left behind getting the benefits of their husbands working outside?’ Specifically this study asked for the impact of out-migration of husbands on the health of wives. Primary data has been collected in rural area of Garhwal, a district in the state of Uttarakhand in India. The total sample size is 262 left-behind wives due to husbands’ out-migration and 256 wives of non-migrants. There is no sign that wife get sick, suffer from RTI/STI, self-reported health worsens as a result of an out-migration of husband except mental health. Coefficient for wives of out-migrant husband has negative sign which means that this group of wives are less likely to assign higher rating in their status of mental health. Wives of both the groups were asked to rank their health. The percentage distribution across both the group is not showing much difference. There is no sign that self-reported health worsens as a result of a household member’s migration.

Studies have examined the AIDS/TB Mortality Consequence of Migration but ignored other causes. We recognise that migrants could die of causes that can preclude AIDS/TB. Therefore, this paper employs a competing risk technique developed by Gray and Fine to investigate how the relationship between migration and AIDS/TB has evolved between 1994 and 2009 in South Africa in the context of other diseases and how the relationship compares with that of migration and other causes of death

The results indicate a changing relationship between migration and AIDS/TB mortality at each period of analysis . Migrants have greater odds of dying of AIDS/TB compared to their non-migrants counterparts. However, the gap became narrow at the later period. It is shown also that migration affects all causes of death

While we expect migration to influence AIDS/TB epidemic the way it did (increasing then decreasing contribution due to the availability of ART at the population level) but what is probably much less expected was its role on "silent" NCDs and other causes.

This paper expands the social determinants of health (SDH) framework to a cross-national perspective, and examines the social patterning of self-rated health among immigrant women. Using social survey from South Korea, I focus on the three largest ethnicities of immigrant women who are marriage migrants: Korean Chinese (N=24,561), Vietnamese (N=19,363), and Han Chinese (N=9,294). The results indicate that the effects of pre- and post-migration SES on immigrant health differ and are influenced by the SES-health relationships in sending societies. Regarding the effects of social exclusion on immigrant health, having better social relationships with native Koreans is significantly associated with better health among immigrants after controlling for covariates; however, having better social relationships with co-ethnic network reveals a negative association, which is only observed among Vietnamese. Furthermore, ethnicity-specific barriers to social integration and better health were identified by demonstrating the magnitude of intra- and inter-group differences. To conclude, research concerning health consequences of immigration should consider the developmental contexts of different sending societies and incorporate a gender perspective, which also deserves further attention from immigrant integration and health policymakers.

Migration and health share a complex relationship and interactions. The increasing urbanization and rural to urban migration provides a scope to analyze the health and nutrition status of migrants living in urban India. The present study tries to understand disparities in child immunization and nutritional status among children by migration status in urban India using the most recent available data of National Family Health Survey (2005-06). Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression models were used to study the levels and factors associated with child nutrition and immunization by migration status. Results suggest that malnutrition and no immunization are very high among children of rural to urban migrants and full immunization is lower than urban non-migrants and urban-urban migrants. More than half of the children from of marginalised households suffer from the problem of undernutrition among rural-urban migrants. Multivariate results show economic status economic status, age of the mother, education, caste and media exposure are negatively associated with malnutrition and positively associated with immunization. Children from south, north-east and east have lesser chance of being malnourished than north region of India.

Mixed evidence exists about social networks’ effect on older people’s disability outcomes. New emerging family patterns and relationships can have impact on old-age coping. Literature comparing native and foreign populations from the aspect of limitations and social networks among elderly has been rare. This study looks at the limitations in everyday activities of people aged 50 years and older in Estonia. Data for this analysis comes from the fourth wave SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe). We explore the relationship between social networks and disability outcome among foreign and native populations with regression analysis. The indicator of limitations in everyday activities is considered an objective disability status measurement that is also used as the basis for calculating healthy life years. Previously, migrants in Estonia have indicated worse health and disability outcomes than the native population. Our analysis indicates that Estonian foreign-origin older population has higher chance of having zero or large networks than natives. No significant differences occur between limitation levels among migrants in the number of family members one has in the network; less limited natives are more likely to have more family members in their network than severely limited or not limited older natives.

This study examines the health stratification in urban China in light of the rapid population migration under current institutional arrangement. We use data from a nationally representative sample to compare the health disparities between migrants and urban natives in terms of health status, health need and accessible resources. A series of health measures, including both subjective reports and objective biometrics of different dimensions, are used in our health comparison to give a comprehensive picture of the health disparities among the urban residents. Migrants at different socioeconomic ladders, from rural and urban areas, are compared with urban natives of comparable socioeconomic statuses to decompose the health impacts from institutional and socioeconomic factors. The empirical finding from this study is expected to shed light on the pattern of health disparities in urban China and the related determinants from institutional and socioeconomic aspects.