Population Services International/China, B-21F Zhiyuan Building, No. 389 Qingnian Road, Kunming, 650021 Yunnan, People's Republic of China.
Demography. 2012 May;49(2):393-424. doi: 10.1007/s13524-011-0088-2.
Although the existing literature on immigrant mental health is extensive, major substantive and methodological gaps remain. Substantively, there is little population-based research that focuses on the mental health consequences of migration for Vietnamese Americans. More generally, although a wide range of mental health problems among immigrants has been identified, the potential causal or mediating mechanisms underlying these problems remain elusive. This latter substantive shortcoming is related to a key methodological challenge involving the potentially confounding effects of selection on migration-related outcomes. This article addresses these challenges by employing a "natural experiment" design, involving comparisons among three population-based samples of Vietnamese immigrants, never-leavers, and returnees (N=709). Data were collected in Ho Chi Minh City and in New Orleans between 2003 and 2005. The study investigates the long-term impact of international migration on Vietnamese mental health, and the potential mediating effects of social networks and physical health on these migration-related outcomes. The results reveal both mental health advantages and disadvantages among Vietnamese immigrants relative to the two groups of Vietnamese nationals. Selection can be ruled out for some of these differences, and both social networks and physical health are found to play important explanatory roles.
尽管现有的移民心理健康文献很丰富，但仍存在重大的实质性和方法学差距。实质性地说，很少有基于人群的研究关注移民对美籍越南人的心理健康后果。更普遍地说，尽管已经确定了移民中存在广泛的心理健康问题，但这些问题背后的潜在因果或中介机制仍然难以捉摸。这一实质性的缺点与一个关键的方法学挑战有关，即移民相关结果的选择可能存在混淆效应。本文通过采用“自然实验”设计来解决这些挑战，该设计涉及对三个基于人群的越南移民样本、从未移民者和回流者（N=709）进行比较。数据是在 2003 年至 2005 年期间在胡志明市和新奥尔良收集的。该研究调查了国际移民对越南人心理健康的长期影响，以及社会网络和身体健康对这些移民相关结果的潜在中介作用。研究结果显示，与其他两组越南国民相比，越南移民既有心理健康优势，也有心理健康劣势。对于其中一些差异，可以排除选择的影响，并且发现社会网络和身体健康都发挥了重要的解释作用。
