Faculty of Nursing, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, Department of Community Health Sciences, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Global Health. 2021 Oct 29;17(1):126. doi: 10.1186/s12992-021-00777-2.
Migrants commonly maintain transnational ties as they relocate and settle in a new country. There is a growing body of research examining transnationalism and health. We sought to identify how transnationalism has been defined and operationalized in migrant health research in high income countries and to document which populations and health and well-being outcomes have been studied in relation to this concept.
We conducted a scoping review using the methodology recommended by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). We searched nine electronic databases; no time restrictions were applied. Studies published in English or French in peer-reviewed journals were considered. Studies were eligible if they included a measure of transnationalism (or one of its dimensions; social, cultural, economic, political and identity ties and/or healthcare use) and examined health or well-being.
Forty-seven studies, mainly cross-sectional designs (81%), were included; almost half were conducted in the United States. The majority studied immigrants, broadly defined; 23% included refugees and/or asylum-seekers while 36% included undocumented migrants. Definitions of transnationalism varied according to the focus of the study and just over half provided explicit definitions. Most often, transnationalism was defined in terms of social connections to the home country. Studies and measures mainly focused on contacts and visits with family and remittance sending, and only about one third of studies examined and measured more than two dimensions of transnationalism. The operationalization of transnationalism was not consistent and reliability and validity data, and details on language translation, were limited. Almost half of the studies examined mental health outcomes, such as emotional well-being, or symptoms of depression. Other commonly studied outcomes included self-rated health, life satisfaction and perceived discrimination.
To enhance comparability in this field, researchers should provide a clear, explicit definition of transnationalism based on the scope of their study, and for its measurement, they should draw from validated items/questions and be consistent in its operationalization across studies. To enhance the quality of findings, more complex approaches for operationalizing transnationalism (e.g., latent variable modelling) and longitudinal designs should be used. Further research examining a range of transnationalism dimensions and health and well-being outcomes, and with a diversity of migrant populations, is also warranted.
移民在迁移和定居新国家时通常保持跨国联系。越来越多的研究关注跨国主义与健康。我们旨在确定在高收入国家的移民健康研究中，跨国主义是如何被定义和操作化的，并记录与这一概念相关的哪些人群和健康及福祉结果得到了研究。
我们使用乔安娜·布里格斯研究所（JBI）推荐的方法进行了范围审查。我们在九个电子数据库中进行了搜索；没有应用时间限制。在同行评议期刊上发表的英文或法文的研究均被考虑。如果研究包括跨国主义的衡量标准（或其一个维度；社会、文化、经济、政治和身份联系和/或医疗保健使用），并检查了健康或福祉，则研究符合条件。
共纳入 47 项研究，主要为横断面设计（81%）；近一半的研究在美国进行。大多数研究对象为广义上的移民；23%的研究包括难民和/或寻求庇护者，而 36%的研究包括无证移民。跨国主义的定义因研究重点而异，超过一半的研究提供了明确的定义。最常见的是，跨国主义是根据与原籍国的社会联系来定义的。研究和衡量标准主要集中在与家人的联系和探访以及汇款发送方面，只有约三分之一的研究检查和衡量了跨国主义的两个以上维度。跨国主义的操作化不一致，可靠性和有效性数据以及有关语言翻译的详细信息有限。近一半的研究检查了心理健康结果，如情绪健康或抑郁症状。其他常见的研究结果包括自我评估的健康、生活满意度和感知歧视。
为了增强该领域的可比性，研究人员应根据研究范围提供跨国主义的明确、明确的定义，并且在衡量方面，他们应从经过验证的项目/问题中进行选择，并在研究之间保持跨国主义的操作化一致性。为了提高研究结果的质量，应使用更复杂的跨国主义操作化方法（例如，潜在变量建模）和纵向设计。还需要进一步研究各种跨国主义维度以及健康和福祉结果，并涵盖不同的移民群体。
