A Longitudinal Analysis of Immigrant Adaptation and Immigrant-Native Disparities in Obesity among Older Americans

Melonie P. Heron, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), CDC
Katrina M. Walsemann, University of Michigan
Robert Schoeni, University of Michigan

We explore how the immigrant-native gap in obesity changes over time and address limitations of previous health assimilation studies by utilizing panel data containing immigrants’ country of origin. We use growth curve modeling to analyze six waves of the Health and Retirement Survey, a nationally representative study of individuals aged 51-61 in 1992. Our multivariate results do not support a uniform pattern of negative adaptation to the U.S. Immigrants from Asia, Europe, and Canada/Australia/New Zealand are significantly less likely to be obese than natives at baseline, while Mexican immigrants are more likely to be obese. With the exception of Asian immigrants, both natives and immigrants experience higher obesity by 2002. However, the rate of change is the same for all groups except Central American immigrants, who have a slightly faster rate of change than natives. Among immigrants, duration of time in the U.S. is not significant net of origin country.