Week 3_2 Immigrant & Indigenous Health

Question 1

Immigrants in Canadian population

Answer 1

-immigrants share of canadian population has been steadily increasing in canada since 1950s
-currently about 20%

-at turn of 1900, most immigrants were from usa and west europe
-since 1960s the profile has changed, leaning more toward asia and central and south america

Question 2

healthy immigrant effect

Answer 2

within SES and age groups, new immigrants are more healthy than
native-born people
-partly cause governments put barriers to those who are not healthy enough from coming to
Canada

-cant be a burden to healthcare system
-also self selection: it is physically and economically hard to migrate

Question 3

Healthy Immigrant Effect – Causes
- Selective nature of migration! Can occur at two levels. What are
they?

Answer 3

1 Individual - Migrants are a self-selected segment of the origin
population and might differ from non-migrants in the origin country
terms of both health and social characteristics
* Negative selection can occur too once arrived – Salmon Bias

2 Government – Receiving countries impose a layer of positive health
and social selection throug

Question 4

Individual Level Changes

Answer 4

• Negative acculturation effect -
  the adoption of unhealthy
  host country cultural norms, risky behaviors, and diets – may
  be the culprit for similarity over time
• Discrimination due to nativism–
  ethnocentric responses or
  prejudices of native-born people towards immigrants

Question 5

Historical Trauma (Brave Heart et al. 2011)

Answer 5

• Cumulative emotional and psychological wounding, over the lifespan and across generations, emanating
  from massive group traumatic experiences
• Differs from posttraumatic stress disorder, which does
  not fully capture the influence and attributes of
  collective trauma
• Extends the sociobiological pathways (weathering theory) from intra- to intergenerational patterns

Question 6

Racial Data in Medicine and Health
* Advocates

Answer 6

• Help us understand patterns of health
• Equip policymakers with promising sites for intervention to
  promote equity

Question 7

Racial Data in Medicine and Health
* Critics

Answer 7

• Use of race as a proxy for ancestry
• Could lead to a reification of biological or inherent differences
• Could lead to an individualist understanding of health difference
  (by not considering structures or “weathering”)

Question 8

Indigenous Data Sovereignty

Answer 8

• Right of Indigenous peoples to govern the collection,
  ownership, and application of data about Indigenous
  communities, peoples, lands, and resources.
• Unreliable, inaccurate, irrelevant, and fraught by a longstanding mistrust of data and data systems by Indigenous
  peoples.

Critique of data collection:
* Prioritize needs and interests of nation-states,
minimal Indigenous engagement