The total number of births among immigrants is on the rise and currently exceeds one fifth of live births within industrialized countries. The relation between adverse birth outcomes and migration remains unclear.
The objectives of this thesis are to undertake a literature review to clarify the relation between migration and adverse birth outcomes, and to examine the interplay between duration of residence, maternal country of origin, and the residential environment using data on immigrants to Ontario Census Metropolitan Areas. The findings indicate that:
a) Analyzing disparities in birth outcomes by migrant status with migrants defined as a single category is not informative. Rather, ethnicity and country of origin are important predictors of birth outcomes among immigrants.
b) Duration of residence is linearly associated with low infant birth weight and preterm birth, mainly driven by decreases in gestational age with prolonged stay in Canada.
c) The detrimental effects of long duration of residence on preterm birth are modestly attenuated, but not prevented, among immigrants living in urban neighbourhoods characterized by low material deprivation.
d) Neighbourhood material deprivation has little, if any, influence on birth outcomes of recent immigrants, and only becomes influential after 15 years of stay in Canada. Maternal world region of origin constitutes a stronger predictor of adverse birth outcomes among recent immigrants.
These findings stress the importance of the maternal country of birth and duration of residence as key predictors of immigrants’ health. They also support further research aimed at clarifying the nature of the association between time spent in Canada after migration and decreases in gestational age at delivery, and the identification of immigrant groups at high risk of adverse birth outcomes, based on these two key predictors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/19303 |
| Date | 03 March 2010 |
| Creators | Urquia, Marcelo L. |
| Contributors | Frank, John W. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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