Soc Sci Med
January 2024
Background: In recent years, the historical legacy of anti-immigrant sentiment in the US has resurfaced, fueled by a new wave of anti-immigrant political rhetoric. Violent political rhetoric, defined as either explicit or metaphorically targeted language to dehumanize targeted groups, can incite discriminatory treatment of immigrants at both interpersonal and institutional levels, shaping their health and healthcare experiences. This qualitative study explores and compares how Spanish- and Chinese-speaking immigrant populations in Chicago make sense of violent political rhetoric against their racial and ethnic identities, utilize coping strategies to maintain their sense of belonging, and experience downstream health consequences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is growing consensus that researchers should offer to return genetic results to participants, but returning results in lower-resource countries has received little attention. In this study, we return results on genetic susceptibility to arsenic toxicity to participants in a Bangladeshi cohort exposed to arsenic through naturally-contaminated drinking water. We examine the impact on behavioral changes related to exposure reduction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmoking cessation is associated with decreases in C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker of systemic inflammation and cancer risk; yet CRP levels remain higher long-term in individuals who quit vs. those who never smoked. While non-Hispanic, Black/African American (NHB) have higher levels of CRP vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Although social determinants of health (SDOH) are important factors in health inequities, they have not been explicitly associated with COVID-19 mortality rates across racial and ethnic groups and rural, suburban, and urban contexts.
Objectives: To explore the spatial and racial disparities in county-level COVID-19 mortality rates during the first year of the pandemic.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study analyzed data for all US counties in 50 states and the District of Columbia for the first full year of the COVID-19 pandemic (January 22, 2020, to February 28, 2021).
Int J Environ Res Public Health
November 2021
While migration plays a key role in shaping the health of Mexican migrants in the US and those in Mexico, contemporary Mexican migration trends may challenge the health selection and return migration hypotheses, two prevailing assumptions of how migration shapes health. Using data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (2002; 2005), we tested these two hypotheses by comparing the cardiometabolic health profiles of (1) Mexico-US future migrants and nonmigrants and (2) Mexico-US return migrants and nonmigrants. First, we found limited evidence for health selection: the cardiometabolic health of Mexico-US future migrants was not measurably better than the health of their compatriots who did not migrate, although migrants differed demographically from nonmigrants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Telomere length (TL) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from fresh venous blood is increasingly used to estimate molecular impacts of accumulated social adversity on population health. Sometimes, TL extracted from saliva or dried blood spots (DBS) are substituted as less invasive and more scalable specimen collection methods; yet, are they interchangeable with fresh blood? Studies find TL is correlated across tissues, but have not addressed the critical question for social epidemiological applications: Do different specimen types show the same association between TL and social constructs?
Methods: We integrate expertise in social epidemiology, molecular biology, and the statistical impact of measurement error on parameter estimates. Recruiting a diverse sample of 132 Metro-Detroit women, we measure TL for each woman from fresh blood PBMC, DBS, and saliva.
Purpose Of Review: Relative to the US-born population, immigrants are less likely to successfully manage and control their diabetes, leading to a host of diabetes-related complications. This review draws on the social determinants of health framework (SDoH) to summarize the multilevel factors that shape diabetes care and management among immigrants in the USA.
Recent Findings: While the diabetes literature is replete with research on individual-level risk factors and health behaviors, empirical literature linking the SDoH to diabetes management among immigrants is limited.
Background: Growing evidence indicates that immigration policy and enforcement adversely affect the well-being of Latino immigrants, but fewer studies examine 'spillover effects' on USA-born Latinos. Immigration enforcement is often diffuse, covert and difficult to measure. By contrast, the federal immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, in 2008 was, at the time, the largest single-site federal immigration raid in US history.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe 12.4 million Mexican migrants in the United States (US) face considerable barriers to access health care, with 45% of them being uninsured. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) does not address lack of insurance for some immigrants, and the excluded groups are a large proportion of the Mexican-American community.
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