With 258 million people currently living outside of their countries of birth, immigration has become a global phenomenon. Immigrants’ health is of particular interests to researchers and policymakers. Do immigrants have better or worse health than non-immigrants? If so, what individual, social and environmental factors explain immigrants’ health (dis)advantage – i.e. what is the effect of the selective nature of immigration and what is the treatment effect of migration, reception and integration itself? Despite extensive research on the topic, the answers to these questions remain incomplete. The goals of the project are: 1) to assess degree of immigrant health selectivity with respect to genetic predisposition to certain health conditions and health behavior, such as BMI, smoking and education, as compared to native-born population; 2) to test whether genetic factors help explain immigrant health (dis)advantage over the native-born older adults in midlife and older age. The research project will analyze merged genetic (polygenic scores), health, and sociodemographic data from two data sets from two different countries, the 2006-2014 Health and Retirement Study and 2006-2010 UK Biobank. Combining genetic, socio-demographic and health data will also help better estimate the effects of important social determinants, such as education and smoking, on health of immigrants. The research will advance our understanding of the factors influencing immigrant health and inform policies aimed at reducing health disparities and improving health of immigrant population.
