Summary
Summary: Restrictive U.S. immigration laws and law enforcement undermine immigrant health by generating fear and stress, disrupting families and communities, and eroding social and economic well-being. The inequality and stress created by immigration law and law enforcement may also generate disparities in health among immigrants with different legal statuses. However, existing research does not find consistent evidence of immigrant legal status disparities in health, possibly because it does not disaggregate immigrants by generation, defined by age at migration. Immigration and life course theory suggest that the health consequences of noncitizen status may be greater among 1.5-generation immigrants, who grew up in the same society that denies them formal membership, than among the 1st generation, who immigrated as adolescents or adults.
In this study, researchers examine whether there are legal status disparities in health within and between the 1st generation and the 1.5 generation of 23,288 Latinx immigrant adults interviewed in the 2005–2017 waves of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS).
Findings: Researchers find evidence of legal status disparities in heart disease within the 1st generation and for high blood pressure and diabetes within the 1.5 generation. Noncitizens have higher rates of poor self-rated health and distress within both generations. Socioeconomic disadvantage and limited access to care largely account for the worse health of legally disadvantaged 1st- and 1.5-generation Latinx adults in California.
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