Disability and active life expectancy of older U.S.- and foreign-born Mexican Americans

Abstract

It has long been recognized that nativity status may have a strong relationship to health (Marmot, Adelstein, and Bulusu, 1984; Kasl and Berkman, 1983). Evidence from United States data sources shows that immigrants have generally lower agespecific mortality than members of the same ethnic group born in the United States (Singh and Miller, 2004; Singh and Siahpush, 2001, 2002). This relationship may come about in part because international migration is selected on good health, and return migration on poor health (Palloni and Morenoff, 2004). There is also some evidence that in the U.S. and other settings immigrant/native differentials in health arise because of differences in socio-cultural characteristics and health-related behaviors (Marmot and Syme, 1976; Antecol and Bedard, 2006). © 2007 Springer.