Collaborative Research: A Binational Study of Social Capital, Social Networks, and Mexican Health

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

Katharine Donato SES-0080403 This collaborative project (Shawn Kanaiaupuni, SES-0002072) examines the consequences of social capital and their effects on the health of Mexicans. This project investigates two substantive questions. The first derives from epidemiological and other studies that document how the health status of Mexicans declines--in the short run--as their length of U.S. residence increases, and--in the long run--for subsequent generations of U.S.-born Mexican children. Accruing to both U.S.-and foreign-born Mexican, the finding has led many to the following explanation: that initially, cultural factors reduce the deleterious effects of poor socioeconomic status on Mexican health, but over time as Mexicans adopt U.S. lifestyles, their country-of origin protective behaviors erode and their health worsens. The research also examines whether and how social networks improve migrant and nonimmigrant health by offering individuals and communities access to greater economic and social resources. Familial and compatriot network, for example, may offer Mexican migrants job opportunities and other financial resources in part because these networks are often specially organized to assist newcomers in the United States. In this context, social networks may also provide migrants information about how to obtain inexpensive health services and products form border towns such as Tijuana. Social networks may also benefit nonimmigrant (or prior migrants) living in Mexican communities where migration is well-established because it may alter the structure of social exchange and social support in origins and/or add new information about alternate living standards. In addition, social ties may also result in economic and health improvements to Mexican communities in the long run as migrants transfer U.S. dollars back to their origins (Kanaiaupuni and Donato 1999). Therefore, in this project, the investigators will enrich the theoretical concept of social capital by identifying its consequences with greater specificity than in the past, and by examining their effects on the health of Mexicans. These issues will be addressed using data from the health and Migration Survey, fielded in three waves in Mexico between 1996 and 1999, and in the United States in 1996 and 1997. The two principal investigators have collected and partially analyzed these data with past support from the Hewlett and Rockefeller Foundations.