Ethnic-Immigrant Differentials in Health Behaviors, Morbidity, and Cause-Specific Mortality in the United States: An Analysis of Two National Data Bases

The Association of Duration of Residence in the United States with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among South Asian Immigrants

“…Contrary to Koya and Egede's study in which multiple CVD risk factors were examined among all immigrant adults using the 2002 National Health Interview Survey, we did not find significant associations between duration of residence in the US and self-reported hyperlipidemia or smoking among South Asians [36]. We also found no association between duration of residence and diabetes or hypertension among South Asian immigrants, which is dissimilar to previous studies that combined national samples of foreign-born adults for analysis using selfreported measures [35,38]. These differences between South Asians and other Asian immigrants indicate the value of examining Asian immigrant subgroups separately.…”

“…We found that duration of residence in the US was significantly associated with overweight/obesity, which is consistent with previous studies that grouped South Asian immigrants with all foreign-born respondents or Asian foreign-born respondents [35,36,[39][40][41][42]. We also found a positive association between duration of residence in the US and daily fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity, though the latter did not yield a significant linear trend.…”

“…Duration of residence in the US has been associated with increased rates of hypertension [35], hyperlipidemia [36,37], diabetes [37,38], obesity [35,36,[39][40][41][42], and smoking [35,36] among immigrants. In addition, immigrants who arrive in the US at younger ages may be at higher risk for diabetes and obesity with increasing duration of residence than immigrants who arrive at later ages, presumably because habits established in the country of origin were healthier than habits established in the US [38,42].…”

Profiles of depressive symptoms among African Americans and Caribbean Blacks

“…The first focuses on explanations for the "healthy immigrant effect" in which Caribbean immigrants are posited to have better health than U.S.-born Blacks. This health advantage is attributed to a positive selection effect of migration whereby healthier individuals are more likely to immigrate and thus, as a group are healthier than native-born individuals (Singh & Siahpush, 2002). This health advantage is maintained by socioeconomic advantages of Caribbean immigrants including, on average, higher levels of education than native-born African Americans (Logan & Deane, 2003).…”

Body Weight and Length of Residence in the US Among Chinese Americans

“…For example, according to a study using data from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey found that 16% of immigrants compared with 22% of USborn individuals surveyed were obese [6]. However, as immigrants' length of residence increases, so does their weight [6][7][8][9]. Prior literature has shown that the prevalence of obesity among immigrants who had lived in the US for at least 15 years approached that of US-born adults [6].…”