Health and Length of Stay in United States Among Children in Immigrant Families: Evidence from the New Immigrant Survey

Background and Purpose

As of 2010, almost 25% of all children in the U.S. are immigrants. In prior research, children in immigrant households have shown worse health conditions than native children (García-Pérez, 2013). While many studies have examined the health conditions of American children in general (Singh & Lin, 2013; Chatterji et al., 2013), more studies are needed with a focus on immigrant children. The purpose of this study is to estimate factors associated with the health of children in immigrant families. In particular, we are interested in studying whether the parents’ citizenship status and length of stay in the U.S. affects children’s health.

Methods

The data analyzed in this study came from the New Immigrant Survey, which is a nationally representative, longitudinal study of legal immigrants and their children who were admitted to the United States. We have used the baseline survey (NIS-2003-1), which was collected from June 2003 to June 2004. From this survey, we have drawn a sample of respondents (N=1831) who provided ‘child information.’ The survey asked health-related questions about first and second child in each household. For the dependent variable, we have utilized the respondent’s rating on each child’s general health. In OLS regression models, parental characteristics included citizenship status, earnings, education level, marital status, and the household size. Also included are child characteristics, including gender, age, health insurance coverage, and the number of years spent in the U.S.

Results

We have found that the general health of children in immigrant families is significantly associated with two factors: 1) health insurance coverage (positive coefficient); 2) a number of years spent in the US (negative coefficient). However, other factors are found insignificant, including the parents’ citizenship status, earnings, education, and marital status. Neither the gender nor age of the child are significant.

Conclusions and Implications

The finding on health insurance coverage has confirmed the existing literatures’ claims that children with health insurance have better health than those without insurance coverage. This finding suggests that health coverage is critical for children’s health in immigrant families.

However, we are surprised at the finding that a longer stay in the U.S is associated with worse health among these children. Some anecdotal studies on adult immigrants seem to support this finding. It has been reported that bio-metrics among adult immigrants tend to get worse over time after the entry to the U.S, perhaps due to changes in their diets and lifestyles. Our finding suggests that this may be the case for children in immigrant families. It is possible that American diets and lifestyles may have put children at a greater health risk over time after migrating to the U.S. However, longitudinal studies are needed to examine changes in children’s health before and after the entry to the U.S.