title: The Social and Spatial Patterning of Life Stress Among Immigrants in Canada.
abstract: While much literature has examined immigrants' health in Canada, less attention has focused specifically on the life stress, an important yet understudied post-migration challenge which may lead to poor coping strategies and negative health consequences. For this study, the pooled 2009-2014 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) was analyzed, using multilevel logistic regression to examine the compositional effects (at an individual level) and areal effects (at a CMA/CA level) on reported high life stress. Separate models have been run for immigrants and non-immigrants for comparative purposes. The results reveal different ways in which select individual socioeconomic and lifestyle factors affect life stress. A statistically significant yet small areal effect at the CMA/CA level on life stress was identified for both immigrants and non-immigrants. When comparing immigrants to non-immigrants, factors such as smoking, length of residency in Canada, and mental health status were found to be particularly informative for predicting high life stress among immigrants. A Healthy Immigrant Effect (HIE) is partially evident, as immigrants with a longer stay in Canada are more likely to be highly stressed than recent arrivals. The areal effect on variances in high life stress is minimal, suggesting the importance of focusing on individual-level effects as stress predictors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada. luwang@ryerson.ca.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada.
authors.forename: Elmer Lara
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Palacios
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000208:ethnology; D002170:Canada / Q000453:epidemiology; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000523:psychology*; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style / Q000208:ethnology*; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health / Q000208:ethnology; D008875:Middle Aged; D050177:Overweight / Q000208:ethnology; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000208:ethnology; D066270:Social Capital; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D062206:Spatial Analysis; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000208:ethnology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: CCHS; Canada; Health; Immigrant; Life stress; Multilevel regression