Immigrant Neighborhood Concentration, Acculturation and Obesity among Young Adults

ABSTRACT:

Researchers repeatedly find that immigrants are healthier than their native-born counterparts. Among immigrant children, however, findings are mixed. Moreover, the effect of neighborhood context on obesity has not been fully examined. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adult Health, this study investigates the linkages between acculturation, neighborhood characteristics, and obesity among young adults, including the potential for residing in an immigrant neighborhood, to mediate the adverse effects of low neighborhood socioeconomic conditions on obesity. Consistent with the unhealthy assimilation model, an immigrant health advantage is found for first generation Asians. Conversely, a greater likelihood of being obese is found for second and third and higher generation Hispanics relative to third and higher generation Whites. Further, a high concentration of immigrants and linguistically isolated households appear to work as a buffer against health risks that relate to obesity, particularly in poor neighborhoods.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hiromi Ishizawa

Hiromi Ishizawa is Assistant Professor of Sociology at The George Washington University. Her main areas of research include social and family demography, immigration, sociology of language, and urban sociology. Her primary research goal is to understand diversity in immigrants’ pathways of incorporation into a host society. In particular, she focuses on the residential and familial contexts in which immigrants and their children reside, and how these contexts affect how they are integrated into American society. Beyond the United States, she conducts research on another immigrant destination country, New Zealand. Her recent publications specifically focus on residential segregation and patterns of ethnic neighborhoods among recent immigrant groups and the indigenous Maori population.

Antwan Jones

Antwan Jones is Assistant Professor of Sociology at The George Washington University. He has published research on various health outcomes. However, he focuses his research on the residential and neighborhood context in which individuals live as a way to understand health disparities among marginalized populations. Engaged in national and international research, he has located himself in the field of urban sociology by elucidating how residential processes and neighborhood contexts are essential to the study of adult cardiovascular disease, child obesity and disability among the elderly. Currently, he serves on the board of directors for the Society for the Study of Social Problems as well as the Capital City Area Health Education Center.