The Healthy Immigrant Paradox and Child Maltreatment: A Systematic Review
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REVIEW PAPER
The Healthy Immigrant Paradox and Child Maltreatment: A Systematic Review Lina S. Millett1
Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract Prior studies suggest that foreign-born individuals have a health advantage, referred to as the Healthy Immigrant Paradox, when compared to native-born persons of the same socio-economic status. This systematic review examined whether the immigrant advantage found in health literature is mirrored by child maltreatment in general and its forms in particular. The author searched Academic Search Premier, CINAHL, CINAHL PLUS, Family and Society Studies Worldwide, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, Social Work Abstracts, and SocINdex for published literature through December 2015. The review followed an evidence-based Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and MetaAnalyses checklist. The author identified 822 unique articles, of which 19 met the inclusion criteria. The reviewed data showed strong support for the healthy immigrant paradox for a general form of maltreatment and physical abuse. The evidence for emotional and sexual abuse was also suggestive of immigrant advantage though relatively small sample size and lack of multivariate controls make these findings tentative. The evidence for neglect was mixed: immigrants were less likely to be reported to Child Protective Services; however, they had higher rates of physical neglect and lack of supervision in the community data. The study results warrant confirmation with newer data possessing strong external validity for immigrant samples.
Introduction The increasing number of children living in immigrant families in the United States (US) requires that we better understand the problem of child abuse and neglect (CAN) among these families [1, 2]. Negative consequences of CAN have been linked to increased mortality, long-term poor physical and mental health, reduced productivity, subsequent violence, and a significant burden on the public services sector [3–5]. Prevalence estimates for CAN among the general population range anywhere from 3 to 30 %, depending on the data source and referent period [6, 7]. However, there is very little epidemiological knowledge about immigrant parenting in general and CAN behaviors in particular. For example, in the US no systematic national data exist on immigrant families involved with Child Protective Services (CPS), a system responsible for responding to child maltreatment allegations [6]. While immigrant status has been collected by some local CPS jurisdictions as well as included in a number of survey studies (using both CPS and community data), no systematic effort has been undertaken to synthesize this information. Consequently, prevalence rates as well as immigrants’ risk for child maltreatment relative to nativeborn groups remain unknown, hindering policy, practice, and research efforts with this population.
Keywords Child maltreatment Immigrants Healthy immigrant paradox Systematic review Epidemiology Background
& Lina S. Millett [email protected] 1
College of
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