HEAM seminar — Wednesday December 6, 3:30 – 5:00pm, CRL B119

Immigration plays an increasingly important role in the demographics of Canada, and other developed countries.  Previous research has detected that recent immigrants in Canada have a better health status than similar native-born individuals, but that this health advantage decreases the longer they stay in Canada (the so called “healthy immigrant effect”).  In view of these sociodemographic trends, this paper attempts to answer the question: How does the health status of immigrants in Canada compare with that of native-born Canadians, and how has this difference been changing over the years?  Five recent cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey were used to analyze the changes in these health differentials.  Based on recent immigration trends, and policy, it was hypothesized that the immigrant health advantage would increase over time, but our investigation shows that this health advantage remains relatively unchanged over the time period observed.