Work

U.S. Migration, Translocality, and the Acceleration of the Nutrition Transition in Mexico

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: Migrant flows are generally accompanied by extensive social, economic, and cultural links between origins and destinations, transforming the former's community life, livelihoods, and local practices. Previous studies have found a positive association between these translocal ties and better child health and nutrition. We contend that focusing on children only provides a partial view of a larger process affecting community health, accelerating the nutrition transition in particular. We use a Mexican nationally-representative survey with socioeconomic, anthropometric, and biomarker measures, matched to municipal-level migration intensity and marginalization measures from the Mexican 2000 Census to study the association between adult body mass and community migration intensity. Our findings from multi-level models suggest a significant and positive relationship between community-level migration intensity and the individual risk of being overweight and obese, with significant differences by gender and with remittance intensity playing a preponderant role.

Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers

DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2012.659629

Authors: Fernando Riosmena, Reanne Frank, Ilana Redstone Akresh, Rhiannon A. Kroeger

Institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, The Ohio State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Language: English

Topic: Migration and Labor Dynamics

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funders: Ohio State University, National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development