Health, Immigrant

The foreign-born population of the United States has continued to grow at a fast rate, increasing from 4.7% of the total population in 1970 to 11.7% in 2003. During a similar peak period of immigration during the early 1900s, the majority of immigrants were from Southern and Eastern European countries. Today, the sources of immigration are more diverse, with the greatest percentage being from Latin America (53.3%) and Asia (25.0%) and only 13.7% now coming from Europe. Breaking down the Latin American group, 10.1% of all U.S. immigrants are from the Caribbean, [Page 605]36.9% are from Central America, and 6.3% are from South America. As the immigrant population grows, it is becoming increasingly important for health care workers and policymakers to know about the health outcomes and status of this changing racial/ethnic demographics.

Unfortunately, there have been some major impediments to learning about the needs and conditions of health among the foreign-born U.S. population. First of all, there have been inconsistencies with the very definition of immigrant used in various research methodologies. More specifically, some research has maintained that once an individual enters the United States as an immigrant, he or she maintains that status indefinitely. Other research has limited the definition of immigrant to include only those who immigrated during the past five years. Some research makes no distinction between immigrant and refugee status, further conflating the definitional issues. Second, some immigrant subgroups are difficult to study. For example, undocumented immigrants have their own health status concerns, but this can be a group whose members are reluctant to speak with researchers. Others have serious language limitations, meaning that they may be excluded from certain studies; thus, the health needs and concerns of an extremely vulnerable population may be ignored. Third, much of the research done on various racial/ethnic groups often does not make a distinction between native-born and foreign-born status. This has been the case particularly for Latinos and Asians. Finally, research instruments have often been created and then used for different groups, making the assumption that what is acceptable in one immigrant community will work in another.

Nevertheless, there are several useful resources for information on the health status and outcome of various immigrant groups. Two in particular are the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health and “advance data” papers from Vital and Health Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics. These two resources are responsible for filling the gap in existing immigrant health knowledge. Much of this research centers on a comparison of health statistics for the native-born population with those for the foreign-born population. This entry focuses on a general discussion of immigrant health status as compared with that of the native-born population and examines three immigrant subgroups more specifically.