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

[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

[poltorazhyda]

They're screened for dangerous infectious diseases, but not for stuff that will make the difference between dying at 60 and 80,

Let's not conflate the issue with rural vs. urban. "Rural" includes farmers, who have one of the highest group longevities in the US, and your typical waddling Walmart lardasses, who obviously don't. The Mexican first generation immigrants don't comprise many of the latter, because it's hard to hang drywall off a fat person scooter. You need some security to get that fat, like the kind that comes in the form of a monthly check from the government.

[shkrobius]

No, in fact, rural Hispanics are known to be doubly disadvantaged
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16441338
The Hispanic paradox is called "paradox" because most of such more-or-less obvious hand-waving rationales can be excluded.

[poltorazhyda]

"However, urban Hispanics were most likely to have undiagnosed diabetes at 3.7%, versus 2.3% of rural whites, 2.8% of urban whites, and 2.7% of rural Hispanics" My handwaving understanding of this statement is that rural Hispanics are, in some ways, better off, and in some ways worse. Also, "rural Hispanics" is a large group, again including first generation immigrants working in the fields and Walmart fatasses.

[shkrobius]

OK, point taken, but I still doubth that working the fields does such wonders to one's health. JUst as you say, you gain in some respects, but lose in other respects. The switchover of urban/rural health is very recent, so these should be two closely balanced evils. It seems unlikely that it explains the effect, though (just as I said), there are no breakups testing that either way.