ARCHIVED – Health Status and Social Capital of Recent Immigrants in Canada: Evidence from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada

Conclusion

Using all three waves of the LSIC, we investigated the changes in the health status of recent immigrants through both descriptive and regression analyses. Our descriptive analyses from the LSIC and the CCHS provides strong support for the existence of the “healthy immigrant effect,” which suggests that the self-reported health status of immigrants during the initial four years after landing is better than that of the Canadian born population. However, both descriptive and regression results indicate that the proportion of immigrants reporting as healthy diminishes over time.

Our findings also suggest that there are disparities in health status among recent immigrant subgroups.  Skilled workers principal applicants are more likely to be in excellent, very good, or good health, while refugees are more likely to rate their health status as fair or poor.

When looking at the effects of selected social capital variables, our study shows that friendship networks play a very important role in the health of recent immigrants. The density and ethnic diversity of friendship networks have significant and positive effects on immigrants’ self-rated health status. For family class immigrants, aside from friendship networks, group and organization networks also have a significant and positive effect on health status during the initial four years after landing. Existing family ties in Canada at landing have a significantly larger positive relationship with the health status of family class immigrants’ than for other immigration categories. 

Policy implications

Evidence from the LSIC indicates that social capital plays an important role for immigrants in the maintenance of good health during the initial years after landing. Therefore, social capital research can be very useful in informing immigrant health policy. Government of Canada programs such as the Immigrant Settlement and Adaption Program (ISAP), the Language Instruction for Newcomers (LINC) program, and the Host program can play a significant role in increasing the social capital of immigrants and can in turn affect health outcomes. These existing programs can support and promote recent immigrants’ settlement and integration into Canadian society by facilitating the building of bonding and bridging networks and community connections.

Evidence from this paper suggests that problems in accessing health care services, including language barriers, relate significantly to the health outcomes of immigrants. In order to overcome these problems and provide recent immigrants with the information they need to take charge of their health and that of their family, community based multicultural health events would be complementary to government programs. The Multicultural Health Fair (MHF), developed by the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Services Agencies (AMSSA) in 2005, is a free community event that brings together representatives and volunteers from ethnic communities across Vancouver to provide health care information to new immigrants (AMSSA 2008). Such events are beneficial because they provide a space where individuals can connect and share information, experience and knowledge while also building community social capital.

Governments can also encourage policies and programs that facilitate linkages between organizations and agencies involved in immigrant population health. One example of a project that attempts to achieve this is British Columbia’s “Mapping Initiative.” Mapping enables the identification of available services within the various communities, and also provides information for policy-makers and service providers on a wide range of health issues impacting diverse populations residing in the province. Furthermore, it encourages a community-based model for population health by connecting and linking various health organizations and community service agencies that are currently or may be potentially engaged in population health. These inter-institutional networks can “improve the effectiveness of programs and lead to the establishment of others” which can lead to an “increased circulation and sharing of tangible (money, materials, equipment) or intangible (information, expertise) resources” (PRI 2005a, 24).

Finally, further research on the effect of social capital on the health of immigrants is necessary in order to create a more robust evidence base to inform the development of policies and programs. Further analysis of datasets such as the GSS and the LSIC is an important first step. Looking forward, the development and funding of immigrant health-based datasets or the addition of a larger immigrant sample to currently existing health based datasets may also be beneficial.

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