When naming makes the difference: healthy immigrant effect

[shkrobius]

...A growing body of literature describes what has come to be known as the “healthy migrant” phenomenon-the fact that on many measures, first-generation immigrants are often healthier than U.S.-born residents who share similar ethnic or racial backgrounds. Over time, however, the migrant health advantage diminishes dramatically. In the “paradox of

Comments

[shkrobius]

Exactly. It is not the immigrants that need be explained.

[dmpogo]

Possible unobservable characteristics include the degree to which immigrants are forward looking and therefore look after both their health and choose to migrate

I have hard time to believe that back in Mexico, those who think about immigration are consienciously maintain their health more than an average american.

Somehow in your qoutes I don't see a more obvious correlator - than when you work hard, you are healthier than when you lie on a couch for hours a day, or even sit in the office.

[shkrobius]

I can only quote what's out there. The idea that poverty and poor health are not causal of each other but, typically, have the common cause is not even considered.

[ak_47]

Не могу не вспомнить:
[...] а бедная сестра у мужика
Несчастней всякого на свете Паука:
Хозяин с ней и сено косит,
И рубит с ней дрова, и воду с нею носит:
Примета у простых людей.
Что чем подагру мучишь боле,
Тем ты скорей
Избавишься от ней.
«Нет, братец», говорит она: «не жизнь мне в поле!»
:)

[poltorazhyda]

It's not like Mexican-Americans are short of unhealthy slobs. They eat a variation on the classic American poor people diet.

Maybe there's a bottleneck. If you've got serious health issues, you're probably not gonna emigrate and try to start a new life somewhere else. On the other hand, the kids are going to regress towards the mean.

[shkrobius]

Fair enough, and this self-selection is the most popular explanation. However, it does not explain the Latinos: the Hispanics seem to be doing better than other groups of immigrants, whereas the self-selection is general. Mind that we are comparing new immigrants vs. the US population ON THE WHOLE. If you adjust for income and education, the differences become staggering.

[poltorazhyda]

I don't know. How about this-most Hispanic immigrants into the states are not refugees, but coming for purely economic reasons, which ups the selection for health. Then, too, they're coming to do manual labor, unlike Indian programmers, so that's an even higher health-related cutoff. Finally, while several decades of manual labor are hell on your joints and back, they're probably much better for your overall health than sitting in an office. I've been researching the efficacy and benefits of various forms of exercise, and the two that stand out seem to be low intensity and high volume, like walking for hours, and intense bursts of exertion. Which describes most manual labor jobs pretty well.

[shkrobius]

But the oversees immigrants are all screened for health. This should be as high a selection barrier than the decision to hop the fence. I can't claim that I know the reason (no one knows, as you see from the post), but the Hispanics are in a different category from the others. I do not know whether the breakup you are looking for exists, but it is hard for me to believe that the fields are so much more healthier places of work than the cities. E.g., currently rural US is LESS healthy than urban/suburban US, see the recent coverage on http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304793504576434442652581806.html

[vdinets]

The so-called "Hispanics" are mostly of interracial origin, so they can be expected to be healthier for genetic reasons.

[shkrobius]

It works even for white Spanish (that is, from Spain) immigrants. They must be Latino culturally, the rest is relatively unimportant. It is not genetics, because it becomes lost over time.

[vdinets]

do you know what they mean by "with birth trauma imprinting"? why is it so bad in the US?

[shkrobius]

I think they mean some lingering effects of birth trauma on one's health in one's later life. I am not sure I know what do they mean here. (If a sick newborn dies in Mexico, his health problems die with him; the very birth in the US, where it is possible due to better care, could be the "trauma" leading to unhealthy life).

In principle, Hispanic women have fewer adverse pregnancies than, say, black women, after adjustments for other things, eg
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17689648
with white women in the middle. Maybe it was a clumsy way of telling that.

[yyi]

I'd venture to suggest that perhaps the new migrants have a better sense of a purpose/mission. And that - thinking Frankl here - can be very important.