Abstract
The immigrant health advantage suggests that, despite significant socioeconomic disadvantage, immigrant populations report better-than-expected health relative to U.S.-born counterparts. This phenomenon has been repeatedly shown in Hispanic-origin immigrant population with little focus on other racial/ethnic groups. In this study, the immigrant health advantage is examined as it pertains to overweight, obesity, hypertension, and diabetes in African-origin black immigrants (n = 2748) relative to U.S.-born non-Hispanic blacks (n = 71,320). Additionally, to investigate within-immigrant heterogeneity in health deterioration associated with duration in the United States, the health of African-origin black immigrants is compared to non-Hispanic white and Mexican–American immigrants. Analyses are conducted on adults aged 18–85 + (n = 570,675) from the 2000–2018 National Health Interview Survey using binomial logistic regressions. Findings support the notion of an immigrant health advantage and suggest that, relative to U.S.-born blacks, African-origin black immigrants are at lower odds for obesity, hypertension, and diabetes, regardless of duration in the United States. Further, when compared to non-Hispanic white and Mexican–American immigrants, African-origin black immigrants display similar probabilities of reporting overweight, obesity, and diabetes across four duration categories. These findings suggest that, despite potentially experiencing high rates of discriminatory and/or racist behaviors, African-origin black immigrants’ health does not deteriorate differently than this sample of non-black immigrant counterparts. The findings presented here provide further insight into the health of African-origin blacks immigrants, a rapidly growing proportion of both the U.S.-black and foreign-born population.
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Notes
Foreign-born reflects those respondents with any region of birth besides the United States.
For both U.S.- and foreign-born groups, Mexican–American reflects an ethnic and/or national identity and, as such, may contain any racial identity.
This is done to ensure parsimony and preserve sample size. Sensitivity analyses with more detailed duration categories show no differences when comparing foreign- and U.S.-born groups.
Full descriptive statistics may be found in Table 1 of the Supplement.
Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5 present the odds ratios, confidence intervals, and average marginal effects at means only for each racial/ethnic group, duration category, and whether an interaction term is present. For the odds ratios and confidence intervals of all model covariates, see Tables S2–S5 in the Supplement.
Analyses were also conducted for baseline models controlling for only calendar year, mean-centered age, and mean-centered age2 and the trends remain consistent..
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by a National Institute on Aging training grant (Grant Number NIA T32AG052371). I am very grateful to Dr. Richard Rogers (University of Colorado Boulder) for providing comments and guidance on this manuscript. I also thank Dr. Fernando Risomena, Dr. Ryan Masters, and Dr. Jason Boardman for their guidance and support. I also acknowledge the data collection efforts that made this project possible.
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Palarino, J.V. The Immigrant Health Advantage: An Examination of African-Origin Black Immigrants in the United States. Popul Res Policy Rev 40, 895–929 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-021-09647-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-021-09647-6