Smoking selectivity among Mexican immigrants to the United States using binational data, 1999–2012

Abstract

Mexican immigrants have lower smoking rates than US-born Mexicans, which some scholars attribute to health selection-that individuals who migrate are healthier and have better health behaviors than their non-migrant counterparts. Few studies have examined smoking selectivity using binational data and none have assessed whether selectivity remains constant over time. This study combined binational data from the US and Mexico to examine: 1) the extent to which recent Mexican immigrants (<10years) in the US are selected with regard to cigarette smoking compared to non-migrants in Mexico, and 2) whether smoking selectivity varied between 2000 and 2012-a period of declining tobacco use in Mexico and the US. We combined repeated cross-sectional US data (n=10.901) on adult (ages 20-64) Mexican immigrants and US-born Mexicans from the 1999/2000 and 2011/2012 National Health Interview Survey, and repeated cross-sectional Mexican data on non-migrants (n=67.188) from the 2000 Encuesta Nacional de Salud and 2012 Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición. Multinomial logistic regressions, stratified by gender, predicted smoking status (current, former, never) by migration status. At both time points, we found lower overall smoking prevalence among recent US immigrants compared to non-migrants for both genders. Moreover, from the regression analyses, smoking selectivity remained constant between 2000 and 2012 among men, but increased among women. These findings suggest that Mexican immigrants are indeed selected on smoking compared to their non-migrating counterparts, but that selectivity is subject to smoking conditions in the sending countries and may not remain constant over time.

Smoking Trends among U.S. Latinos, 1998–2013: The Impact of Immigrant Arrival Cohort

“…Importantly, our results are suggestive that cohort effects may be a non-trivial source of bias in cross-sectional studies that examine the relationship between duration of residence and health; future studies should use methods that assess arrival cohort effects. Considering the changing tobacco contexts in immigrants’ origin countries, smoking prevention and cessation interventions should take into account not only time in the US, but also the period during which immigrant cohorts arrived in the US, as well as the smoking trends in immigrants’ origin countries [34,35,36], particularly at the time the immigrant cohort left. For instance, if an immigrant arrives in the U.S. at a time when smoking is already low, the decrease in smoking may be lower in magnitude.…”

“…Furthermore, findings speak to the importance of global tobacco control surveillance and policy. Monitoring changes in tobacco prevalence in Latin American immigrant sending countries might improve our ability to anticipate smoking trends among newly arrived cohorts of immigrants [36]. Finally, studies of immigrant health should consider how immigrant arrival cohorts vary based on dynamic origin country contexts.…”

Association Between E-Cigarette Use and Acculturation Among Adult Immigrants in the United States

“…9 Prior research suggests that immigrants are less likely to use tobacco than persons born within the United States. [10][11][12] For instance, a recent national study showed that US-born Mexican-Americans had 1.5 times higher odds of being current smokers than recent immigrants with less than 10-year residency in the United States, which indicates that their origin culture might have a protective effect on smoking. 12 Acculturation describes the process of immigrants maintaining their original culture while developing relationships with the new culture of their host country, resulting in changes in health beliefs and behaviors.…”

“…[10][11][12] For instance, a recent national study showed that US-born Mexican-Americans had 1.5 times higher odds of being current smokers than recent immigrants with less than 10-year residency in the United States, which indicates that their origin culture might have a protective effect on smoking. 12 Acculturation describes the process of immigrants maintaining their original culture while developing relationships with the new culture of their host country, resulting in changes in health beliefs and behaviors. 13 The relationship between smoking tobacco and acculturation, often measured by proxies such as duration in the United States and language proficiency, varies by race/ethnicity and sex.…”

Health Selectivity and Rural-Urban Migration in China: A Nationwide Multiple Cross-Sectional Study in 2012, 2014, 2016

“…Furthermore, evidence has shown that the intensity of health selection might change over time. Previous studies in Mexico and the U.S. found that smoking selectivity increased among women because of changes in Mexico’s tobacco control policies [29]. Another study found increased health selection of obesity as the Mexican obesity prevalence increased [30].…”