TY - JOUR
T1 - More than culture
T2 - Structural racism, intersectionality theory, and immigrant health
AU - Viruell-Fuentes, Edna A.
AU - Miranda, Patricia Y.
AU - Abdulrahim, Sawsan
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Research Board at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (to E. Viruell-Fuentes). The authors are members of Place, Migration, and Health: A Cross-National Research Network (PMH); PMH has been supported by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation , and the Center for the Advancement of Health . We thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions, as well as Rebecca Hester for insightful conversations regarding the need to treat immigration policies as health policies. We are also thankful to Bryanna Mantilla for her research assistance.
Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/12
Y1 - 2012/12
N2 - Explanations for immigrant health outcomes often invoke culture through the use of the concept of acculturation. The over reliance on cultural explanations for immigrant health outcomes has been the topic of growing debate, with the critics' main concern being that such explanations obscure the impact of structural factors on immigrant health disparities. In this paper, we highlight the shortcomings of cultural explanations as currently employed in the health literature, and argue for a shift from individual culture-based frameworks, to perspectives that address how multiple dimensions of inequality intersect to impact health outcomes. Based on our review of the literature, we suggest specific lines of inquiry regarding immigrants' experiences with day-to-day discrimination, as well as on the roles that place and immigration policies play in shaping immigrant health outcomes. The paper concludes with suggestions for integrating intersectionality theory in future research on immigrant health.
AB - Explanations for immigrant health outcomes often invoke culture through the use of the concept of acculturation. The over reliance on cultural explanations for immigrant health outcomes has been the topic of growing debate, with the critics' main concern being that such explanations obscure the impact of structural factors on immigrant health disparities. In this paper, we highlight the shortcomings of cultural explanations as currently employed in the health literature, and argue for a shift from individual culture-based frameworks, to perspectives that address how multiple dimensions of inequality intersect to impact health outcomes. Based on our review of the literature, we suggest specific lines of inquiry regarding immigrants' experiences with day-to-day discrimination, as well as on the roles that place and immigration policies play in shaping immigrant health outcomes. The paper concludes with suggestions for integrating intersectionality theory in future research on immigrant health.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84869491423&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.037
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.037
M3 - Review article
C2 - 22386617
AN - SCOPUS:84869491423
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 75
SP - 2099
EP - 2106
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
IS - 12
ER -
