Immigration and Health Among Non-Hispanic Whites: The Impact of Arrival Cohort and Region of Birth.

Read, Jen’nan Ghazal, Jessica S. West, and Christina Kamis. 2020. Social Science & Medicine  Volume 246.

Immigration is central to our understanding of U.S. racial and ethnic health disparities, yet relatively little is known about the health of White immigrants—a group whose ethnic origins have become increasingly diverse. In this study, Dr. Read and her colleagues separate non-Hispanic Whites by immigrant status, region of birth, and period of arrival in the U.S. and examine rates of physical disability among adults aged 40 and older. Their analysis finds that White immigrants overall have a slightly lower prevalence of disability than U.S.-born Whites.

However, immigrants who arrived in 1981–2000 have a smaller advantage over U.S.-born Whites than immigrants in earlier and later groups. This may be explained by the influx of Eastern European and Middle Eastern immigrants during this timeframe—many of them fleeing political instability in their nations of origin—who have higher rates of disability than their Western European counterparts. These results show the need for scholars of health disparities to consider diversity within the White racial category.