Ross MacMillan
Unpacking
the Education-Health Nexus in the Era of 'New' Immigration
Abstract
Education and health are strongly intertwined. High educational attainment translates into better health
and poor health is strongly concentrated among those with low
attainment. Yet, as social scientists have documented
the significance of the education-health nexus, the face of America
has changed. America
has always been a nation of immigrants, yet the contemporary
immigration increasingly involves migration from southern hemisphere
nations, a mix of people leaving impoverished nations, fleeing
environmental disasters, and escaping civil unrest, greater spatial
diffusion across a number of immigrant ‘gateways,’ and
immigrant “replenishment” where a steady influx of
new immigrants shape and perhaps even stall assimilation processes. The new era of immigration has profound implications for education,
health, and the education-health nexus that have yet to be systematically
explored. Given
this, “Unpacking the Education-Health Nexus in the Era
of ‘New’ Immigration” involves four phases.
First, we analyze data from several national surveys to build a
knowledge base on education-health gradients among contemporary
immigrants. Second,
we will generate forums to disseminate and discuss research findings
on education and health among contemporary immigrants with key
community stakeholders. Third, we will field a pilot study of
the education-health nexus among immigrant communities in the
Twin Cities Metropolitan area. Using
a
“community based participatory research” model, the study will
incorporate detailed measures of educational experiences and attainments, measures
of health knowledge, information, and decision-making, and a health questionnaire
organized around a life history account of preventative measures, disease diagnoses,
functional status, health behaviors, self-perceptions of health and limitation,
mental health, and healthcare access and utilization. Finally, we propose a longitudinal community
survey that further examines education, health information processing, health
care and utilization, and health outcomes. The specific features of the data collection
will be 1) stratified sampling of multiple immigrant groups in the Twin Cities
with a specific focus on the larger and growing populations of Somalis, Latinos,
and Hmong, coupled with ‘control’ groups of non-immigrant African-American
and White; 2) a three wave longitudinal study that allows for a) a baseline
assessment and b) evaluation of stability and change in education and health
and the mechanisms that link them; 3) experimental interventions and rigorous
evaluation, designed in consultation with community partners, targeting in
educational enhancement and health informatics; and 4) collection of detailed
contact information that would allow for subsequent follow-ups to assess long-term
outcomes and life course variation in health profiles.
Team Members:
Naomi Duke
I am very excited to be a
part of the team with Dr(s) Macmillan and Oakes and to work with
CYFC. My background is in medicine; I am a
physician, having earned my medical degree from Harvard and completed
an internship and residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
at the University of Michigan Hospitals. I
have worked for the National Health Service Corps as a primary
care physician at Model Cities Health Center (now Open Cities
Health Center) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I have also completed an MPH in Maternal
and Child Health, core concentration in Child Health Advocacy,
and a Leadership in Adolescent Health Fellowship at the UMN. I am currently participating in an interdisciplinary adolescent
health post-doctoral research fellowship through the Center for
Adolescent Nursing at the UMN and will be entering the PhD program
in Sociology at the UMN in the fall of 2009.
My research interests include
developing strategies to reduce health disparities through community
partnering and advocacy, understanding facilitators of healthy
youth development, evaluating the concepts of social capital
and neighborhood effects in adolescent development and future
civic engagement, and advancing best practices in adolescent
health services and policy. My primary professional goal is to assist in re-defining how
the US medical and social systems frame adolescence and emerging/young
adulthood with respect to valuation and resulting health policies. A second passion and goal for my professional
career is to understand the framework of Life Course Studies
as a means of informing health policy development for adolescents
and emerging adults. I
am particularly interested in studying and assessing effects
of periodicity of state and federal health policy agenda and
community resource management on trajectories of health outcomes
for young people.
I look forward to playing
an active role in discussions and cohort activities and collaboration. I am happy to bring my experience in
understanding individual and family constructs for health and
illness and a broad perspective in identifying population dynamics
impacting these constructs. In
my spare time I enjoy listening to jazz and reading mystery novels.
J. Michael Oakes
I
am a McKnight Presidential Fellow and Associate Professor in
the Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota. I am also a fellow of the MN Population Research Center and
an Adjunct Professor of Sociology. My professional interests center on quantitative methodology,
social epidemiology, and research ethics. I am an active researcher and frequent principal investigator
on studies addressing a vast array of methodological, health,
and ethical topics. I’ve
authored over 70 papers exploring problems at the intersection
of social and medical sciences; my first text entitled “Methods
in Social Epidemiology” was released in 2006. I am widely known for my seminal work
on how social stratification and social interaction complicates
inferences drawn from many common research designs and statistical
methods in public health research. I
teach several graduate-level courses in statistical methods and
social epidemiology, including group-randomized trials and advanced
epidemiologic methods. I serve on the editorial board of Evaluation Review. I am married and have two young children,
and am eager to develop and learn from my new CYCF colleagues.
