Immigrants who come to Canada seeking a better life may in fact be setting themselves up for possible premature death.
A study by Canadian researchers finds that the longer immigrants remain in Canada, the worse their cardiovascular health becomes. "The health of immigrants coming to Canada from China, South Asia, or Europe worsens with each decade they stay in the country," Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher Dr. Scott Lear told the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2008, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.
"We don't want people to think 'come to Canada and die,'" says Dr. Lear, a kinesiologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. "But there is something going on. Immigrants are very healthy when they first come to Canada, but as their time here increases, so does their cardiovascular risk." Dr. Lear and his colleagues measured atherosclerosis - or narrowing of an artery - in the carotid artery with ultrasound in more than 600 Chinese, European, and South Asian immigrants. With that as their determinant of health, the researchers found that the longer the immigrant stayed in Canada, the narrower the carotid arteries.
Length of stay in Canada remained an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis, even after considering other factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, family history of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, level of education, income, body mass index, abdominal fat, smoking status, physical activity, lipids, insulin, blood glucose, and blood pressure. Atherosclerosis is a leading contributor to heart disease and stroke, which are the leading cause of death in Canada.
"Duration in Canada emerged as a very powerful risk factor of its own," says Dr. Lear. "Now that we know this, we need to put in place health education programs focused on immigrants. They are a high risk group and would benefit from targeted CVD prevention strategies."
Dr. Lear speculates that the reason new immigrants to Canada suffer such a deterioration in their health is because their first priorities are focused on finding suitable housing and establishing a reliable income with little attention to personal health. They also tend to be disenfranchised from health services.