MEXICAN MIGRATION AND BIRTH OUTCOMES: EXPANDING THE LENS TO INCLUDE RECEIVING AND SENDING COMMUNITIES

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.