Understanding the Healthy Immigrant Effect and Cardiovascular Disease: Looking to Big Data and Beyond.

Abstract

Immigrant health is a growing area of study in epidemiology, and there is an obvious demographic imperative to examine immigrant health patterns. Immigrants and their children comprise sizable and growing minorities in developed countries. Immigrant flows are also a major driver of racial/ethnic and cultural diversity in receiving countries, with important implications for population health if immigrants are exposed to a hostile social climate and discriminatory treatment. But immigrant health is also of interest epidemiologically because patterns of cardiovascular disease (CVD) across immigrant groups, receiving contexts, and generations can provide potential etiologic insights that have broad applicability.