The available evidence on the health of immigrant populations highlights priorities in future research. Understanding the context of specific immigrant populations is important. A recent cross-national study highlights the promise of attending to the context of migration by comparing race-related risk factors and the health of Caribbean immigrants in the U.K. to that of Black Caribbean immigrants in the U.S.116 The study found that the Caribbean English reported higher levels of work discrimination than African Americans and Caribbean blacks in the U.S. who reported similar levels of discrimination. Health patterns were complex. The Caribbean blacks in the U.S. tend to have better health than African Americans but worse health than the Caribbean English. Similarly, the pattern of worsening health beyond the age of 35 was stronger for the Caribbean English than for either African Americans or Caribbean blacks in the U.S. These differences in health between Caribbean immigrants in two contexts could be due to differences in the composition of the two groups of immigrants. Compared to black Caribbean immigrants in the U.S., the English Caribbean group was more likely to be second generation, to have migrated under the age of 12 and before the 1970s.116
