04/03/17 – Smoking Selectivity among Mexican Immigrants using Binational Data

April 3, 2017

Mexican immigrants have lower smoking rates than U.S.-born Mexicans, and some scholars attribute this to health selection, the concept that individuals who migrate are healthier and have better health behaviors than their non-migrant counterparts. This is often indirectly measured by comparing U.S.-born Mexicans to recent Mexican immigrants, however, that comparison neglects several important factors.

Using nationally-representative datasets from both countries, researchers examined differences in health selection of smoking, by gender, in 2000 and 2012. In this USC Immigrant Health Initiative seminar, Annie Ro, assistant professor of public health at University of California, Irvine, presented the findings, which suggest Mexican immigrants are indeed selected on smoking compared to their non-migrating counterparts, but that selectivity is subject to smoking conditions in the sending countries and may not remain constant over time.

Dr. Annie Ro
Assistant Professor, Public Health
University of California, Irvine

This seminar was hosted by the USC Immigrant Health Initiative in collaboration with the USC Center for Health Equity in the Americas and USC Institute for Global Health. Learn more about the Immigrant Health Initiative at usc.edu/ihi.