Section on Ethnicity and Health, Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity Branch, National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bld 10-CRC, Rm 6-5940, MSC 1612, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD, 20892-1612, USA.
Health Behavior Research Branch, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA.
J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2018 Apr;5(2):279-286. doi: 10.1007/s40615-017-0368-7. Epub 2017 Apr 25.
Reason for immigration as a biological stress has not been studied in Africans. Our goal was to determine in African immigrants, if biological stress measured by allostatic load score (ALS) varies by reason for immigration.
Using an ALS which had been previously developed with the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data to assess stress due to racism and nativity, ALS was calculated in 85 African immigrants (67% male, age 42 ± 10 years). For confirmation, we tested five additional ALS also built from NHANES.
The two reasons for immigration which consistently had the lowest ALS were family reunification and lottery winner for self and immediate family. The other reasons for immigration such as study, asylum/refugee, and work had higher ALS. As reasons for immigration with the lowest ALS promoted family unity, they were combined (group 1) and the Africans who came for other reasons were combined (group 2). ALS in group 1 vs. group 2 was 1.96 ± 1.40 vs. 2.94 ± 1.87, P = 0.03.
Biological stress varies by reason for immigration and appears to be mitigated by maintaining family unity. Overall, reason for immigration is an important biographical data likely to influence health.
移民原因作为一种生物应激在非洲人中尚未得到研究。我们的目标是确定在非洲移民中，生物应激的衡量指标——全身适应综合征评分（ALS）是否因移民原因而有所不同。
我们使用先前基于国家健康和营养调查（NHANES）数据开发的 ALS 来评估因种族主义和出生地而产生的压力，对 85 名非洲移民（67%为男性，年龄 42±10 岁）进行了 ALS 计算。为了验证，我们还测试了另外五个也来自 NHANES 的 ALS。
两种始终具有最低 ALS 的移民原因是家庭团聚和为自己和直系亲属赢得的彩票。其他移民原因，如学习、庇护/难民和工作，ALS 更高。由于 ALS 最低的移民原因促进了家庭团结，我们将它们合并（第 1 组），将因其他原因移民的非洲人合并（第 2 组）。第 1 组与第 2 组的 ALS 分别为 1.96±1.40 和 2.94±1.87，P=0.03。
生物应激因移民原因而异，通过维持家庭团结似乎可以减轻。总体而言，移民原因是一个可能影响健康的重要传记数据。
