Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Overweight and Obesity among Documented and Undocumented Immigrants in Utah

Ming Wen, University of Utah
Thomas Maloney, University of Utah

There are approximately 9.3 million undocumented immigrants, constituting 26.4% of all foreign-born residents in the US. There are very few sources that actually identify such individuals. As a result, little information about them is available. Using a unique database, the Utah Population Database, which allows researchers to identify undocumented immigrants in Utah, we will first examine prevalence rates of overweight/obesity for subgroups defined by age, gender, race/ethnicity, foreign-born/US-born, and documented/undocumented legal status to see if the Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox holds for the undocumented. If disparities in overweight/obesity across groups are observed, we will then explore whether neighborhood SES contributes to these group differences. Finally, we will investigate whether neighborhood SES interacts with group identities in influencing overweight/obesity. Preliminary analyses show that average BMI is 25.24 for the undocumented, 24.90 for the foreign born, 24.80 for the U.S. born, and 24.82 for the total sample. More analytical results will be available soon.