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The Unusually Poor Physical Health Status of Cambodian Refugees Two Decades After Resettlement

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Abstract

To better document the health status of Cambodian refugees, the physical health functioning, disability, and general health status of Cambodian refugees was compared to that of non-refugee Asian immigrants with similar demographic characteristics. Data were collected between October 2003 and February 2005, from 490 face-to-face interviews conducted with a stratified probability sample of households from the Cambodian community in Long Beach, California. Data on the health status of the general adult population (n = 56,270) was taken from the California Health Interview Survey, a telephone interview of a representative sample California residents. Cambodian refugees reported exceedingly poor health when compared to both the general population to the Asian participants. This disparity was only slightly reduced when Cambodian refugees were compared to the subsample of Asian immigrants who were matched on gender, age, income, and urbanicity. Although Cambodians refugees are older and poorer than the general population, their poor health cannot be fully attributed to these risk factors. Research is needed to guide health policy and practices aimed at eliminating this health disparity.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the RAND Survey Research team: Judy Perlman, MA, Can Du, MA, and Crystal Kollross, MS, for their assistance with data collection. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of our interviewers and community advisors to the success of this research. This research was supported by grants R01MH059555, R01AA13818, and R01MH082069. We are also indebted to the research participants without whom this study would not have been possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street, P.O. BOX 2138, Santa Monica, California, 90407, USA

    Eunice C. Wong, Grant N. Marshall, Terry L. Schell, Marc N. Elliott & Katrin Hambarsoomians

  2. University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Center for Health Policy Research, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Susan H. Babey

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  1. Eunice C. Wong
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  2. Grant N. Marshall
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  3. Terry L. Schell
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  4. Marc N. Elliott
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Correspondence to Eunice C. Wong.

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Wong, E.C., Marshall, G.N., Schell, T.L. et al. The Unusually Poor Physical Health Status of Cambodian Refugees Two Decades After Resettlement. J Immigrant Minority Health 13, 876–882 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-010-9392-y

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