Immigrant Health - Changing Contexts, Heterogeneity, Resilience, and Selectivity

Session Submission Type: Paper Session (90 minute)

Description

We welcome work that examines the role of the current/changing social and policy contexts on immigrant health and, where relevant, aging, as well as work improving sociological understanding of migrant selectivity and other factors shaping immigrant health.

Although strong evidence shows that immigrants experience lower mortality and fewer ailments than the native-born population, important nuances within immigrant health patterns warrant further investigation, especially in light of the changing social and policy contexts. For instance, some immigrants may experience more rapid physical and cognitive aging due to the earlier onset, longer duration, and higher overlap of chronic health conditions. Certain subgroups such as refugees and children of immigrants also face disproportionately high risks of mental health challenges, and noncitizens often have limited access to high-quality care due to coverage restrictions tied to citizenship or visa status. We encourage works that examine the heterogeneity of immigrant health patterns and how current or changing social and policy contexts or other factors shape immigrant health and (un)healthy aging.

While the context of reception is undoubtedly relevant to understanding both the advantages and disadvantages of immigrant health, these outcomes may also be rooted in pre-migration conditions and forms of migrant selectivity earlier in the life course. Migrant selectivity dynamics themselves may have also evolved due to changing immigration policies and broader structural conditions, yet its sociological foundations—what causes it, how it operates, and how it varies across contexts—remain both undertheorized and underexamined empirically. We therefore also invite work that advances sociological understanding of migrant selectivity in health.

Sub Unit

• Medical Sociology Section / Immigrant Health - Changing Contexts, Heterogeneity, Resilience, and Selectivity

Presider

• Thoa V. Khuu, University of Colorado-Boulder

Individual Presentations

• Beyond Nativity: How Parental Immigration Background Shapes Mental Health Trajectories Among Asian-Origin Youth - Yoonyoung Choi, University of Arizona; Mei-Yu Kuo, Ohio State University

• Health consequences of migration: An exploration of migration, parental health and generations - Sait Bayrakdar, University of Warwick; Ayse Guveli, University of Warwick

• Pandemic Impacts, Social Networks, and Mental Health in Chinatown, Manhattan - Jiahao Zhang, University at Albany; Zai Liang, State University of New York at Albany

• Sociopolitical stress and Muslim immigrant health: County-level analyses of birth outcomes in the Trump era - Nafeesa Andrabi, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

• The Effect of U.S. Health Care Safety Net Clinics on Immigrant Mortality, 1990-2019 - Emily Parker, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

• The Costs of Integration: How Marriage to US-Born Spouses Affects Immigrant Mortality - Yoonyoung Choi, University of Arizona

Session Organizers

• Thoa V. Khuu, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Fernando Riosmena, University of Texas-San Antonio