Abstract
BackgroundImmigration is a disruptive event with multiple implications for health. Stressors, including family separation, acculturation, job insecurity, restricted mobility, sojourns, dangerous border crossings, stigmatization, and marginalization, shape immigrant health in ways we are only beginning to untangle. Around the world, there are over 200 million international migrants. In 2015, there were 43.2 million immigrants living in the US, 26.8% of whom were born in Mexico. Investigating how stress affects health among migrants facilitates better understanding of their experiences.MethodsHere, we review existing research on stress and how allostatic load varies among migrants with specific attention to Mexican migrants in the US. Next, we explore research incorporating biomarkers of allostasis and narratives of migration and settlement to examine disease risks of Mexican migrants residing in Columbus, Ohio. This mixed-methods approach allowed us to examine how social stressors may influence self-reports of health differentially from associations with assessed discrimination and physiological biomarkers of health.ResultsThese data sources are not significantly associated. Neither narratives nor self-reports of health provide significant proxies for participants’ physiological health.ConclusionsWe propose, the pairing of objectively assessed health profiles with narratives of migration better illustrate risks migrants face, while allowing us to discern pathways through which future health challenges may arise. Immigration and acculturation to a new nation are biologically and culturally embedded processes, as are stress and allostatic responses. To understand how the former covary with the latter requires a mixed-methods bioethnographic approach. Differences across multiple social and physiological systems, affect individual health over time. We propose incorporating physiological biomarkers and allostatic load with migrants’ narratives of their migration to unravel complex relationships between acculturation and health.
Highlights
Immigration is a disruptive event with multiple implications for health
Tuggle et al Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2018) 37:28 adaptability to stressors is beneficial to organisms during everyday life, such responsiveness and flexibility come at a cost
We propose that by pairing objective health profiles with narratives of migration and self-reports of health, we will better capture risks faced by migrants and discern interconnecting pathways that result in their greater health challenges
Summary
Immigration is a disruptive event with multiple implications for health. Stressors, including family separation, acculturation, job insecurity, restricted mobility, sojourns, dangerous border crossings, stigmatization, and marginalization, shape immigrant health in ways we are only beginning to untangle. The deterioration of immigrant health following migration is closely intertwined with stressors they experience before, during, and after their journeys. Transitioning into a new society and the social adjustment that follows produce unique stressors for migrants. For all species, their environment is a significant stressor, and any change in that environment may have a corresponding. Activation of allostatic mechanisms in response to stressors results in cumulative wear and tear. This long-term accumulation of somatic damage is an allostatic load. It may manifest as chronic disease following deterioration of internal regulatory systems, cognitive function, and physical performance [3,4,5]
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