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Are Immigrants from Asia Healthier than Immigrants from Other Regions?: Self-reported Health Status and Functional Difficulties of Immigrants in the USA

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Abstract

This study examines how regions of origin are related to immigrant health status in the USA. This paper uses the National Health Interview Survey to examine health status differences between East and Southeast Asian immigrants and immigrants from other regions. The models control for duration, socioeconomic factors, and behavioral factors. Two health indicators are examined: self-reported health and functional difficulties. Results from ordered logit regression analyses demonstrate that some of the regions of birth do significantly predict differences in health for immigrants. Specifically, immigrants from Central America and the former Soviet Union do exhibit significant health disadvantages when compared with immigrants from East and Southeast Asia. The duration effect was positively related to functional difficulties but not to self-reported health status. Overall, economic resources and education typically have a strong relationship to the measures of immigrants’ physical health. It was also found that drinking is persistently associated with better measures of physical health while smoking appears to have the opposite effect.

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Notes

  1. The 2004 NHIS data set does not include information on English language facility which is another variable frequently used for examining the relationship between acculturation and the health of immigrants.

  2. The respondents’ answers were coded as following: 0 = not at all difficult, 1 = only a little difficult, 2 = somewhat difficult, 3 = very difficult, 4 = can’t do at all, 6 = do not do this activity, 7 = refused, 8 = ascertained, and 9 = don’t know. Those answers greater than 4 were treated as missing.

  3. A multiple imputation method was used in order to minimize the systematic error due to missing information on combined family income. In our analyses, approximately 7% of the total number of cases examined consists of cases in which family income was obtained through a multiple imputation using micombine in STATA. The income categories were also recorded into numeric values, and the mean value for each income category were used. For the open-end interval, the value was computed using a Pareto Curve (Shryock et al. 1971).

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 800 Algoma Blvd, Oshkosh, WI, 54901, USA

    Juyeon Son

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Son, J. Are Immigrants from Asia Healthier than Immigrants from Other Regions?: Self-reported Health Status and Functional Difficulties of Immigrants in the USA. Int. Migration & Integration 14, 19–38 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-011-0223-3

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