Immigration and the health of Asian and Pacific Islander adults in the United States

The authors used the 1992-1995 National Health Interview Survey to examine the effect of immigrant status (both nativity and duration of residence in the United States) on the health of Asian and Pacific Islander adults by co nstructing models in which national origin was also specified. In logistic regression models adjusted for age, marital status, living arrangement, fam ily size, and several socioeconomic indicators, immigrants were found to be in better health than their US-born counterparts, but their health advanta ges consistently decreased with duration of residence. For example, for Asi an and Pacific Islander immigrants whose duration of residence was less tha n 5 years, 5-9 years, and 10 years or more, the odds ratios for activity li mitations were 0.45 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.33, 0.62), 0.65 (95% C I: 0.46, 0.93), and 0.73 (95% CI: 0.60, 0.90), respectively. Similar findin gs emerged for respondent-reported health and bed days due to illness. Thes e results support the validity and complementarity of the migration selecti vity and acculturation hypotheses. However, the picture was not uniformly p ositive. The health of certain Asian and Pacific Islander groups, notably P acific Islanders and Vietnamese, was found to be less favorable than averag e. Finally, after adjustment for health status, immigrants seemed to have l ess adequate access to formal medical care.