Jang Sou Hyun
The Graduate Center of City University of New York (CUNY), Department of Sociology, New York, NY;, Email:
Am J Health Behav. 2017 Jul 1;41(4):461-470. doi: 10.5993/AJHB.41.4.11.
This study examined factors associated with first-generation Korean immigrants' medical tours to the homeland, which has emerged as a field of study in immigrant medical transnationalism and immigrant healthcare behaviors.
This paper reports survey data from 507 Korean immigrants and indepth interviews with 120 Korean immigrants in the New York-New Jersey area.
About one-fourth of survey respondents have visited their home country for medical care since their migration to the US. Of those with relatives in Korea, 29% have experienced at least one medical tour, compared to only 9.2% of those without relatives in Korea. Having frequent contacts with relatives in the home country was positively associated with the number of medical tour visits.
Except for social transnational ties, other types of transnational ties with the home country were marginally related to Korean immigrants' medical tourism. Surprisingly, their health insurance status itself, which is assumed to be important, was not statistically associated with medical tourism. Although this study has the limitation of analyzing a convenience sample, it contributes to the literature on immigrant transnationalism and immigrant healthcare behaviors by using a mixed-methods approach to focus on one ethnic group's medical transnationalism.
本研究调查了与第一代韩国移民回国就医相关的因素，回国就医已成为移民医疗跨国主义和移民医疗保健行为领域的一项研究内容。
本文报告了对507名韩国移民的调查数据以及对纽约 - 新泽西地区120名韩国移民的深入访谈结果。
约四分之一的调查受访者自移民美国以来曾回国就医。在韩国有亲属的受访者中，29%至少有过一次回国就医经历，而在韩国没有亲属的受访者中这一比例仅为9.2%。与祖国的亲属保持频繁联系与回国就医的次数呈正相关。
除了社会跨国联系外，与祖国的其他类型跨国联系与韩国移民的医疗旅游仅有微弱关联。令人惊讶的是，他们的医疗保险状况本身（一般认为很重要）在统计学上与医疗旅游并无关联。尽管本研究存在分析便利样本的局限性，但通过采用混合方法聚焦于一个族群的医疗跨国主义，为移民跨国主义和移民医疗保健行为的文献做出了贡献。
