immigrants upon arrival to the U.S. appears to be a determinant of the immigrant group's trajectory of health. For example, the gap in mortality between immigrants and the native born is smaller for Asians than for whites, blacks and Hispanics (Singh and Miller 2004) and recent national data reveal that declines in mental health for subsequent generations were less marked for Asians (Takeuchi et al. 2007) than for blacks (Williams, Haile, et al. 2007) and Hispanics (Alegria et al. 2007). Thus, although black, Latino and Asian first generation immigrants all have lower disorder rates than the general population of blacks and whites, by the third generation the disorder rates of Latino and black but not Asian immigrants are higher (Alegria et al. 2007; Takeuchi et al. 2007; Williams, Haile, et al. 2007; Miranda et al. 2008). One of the factors contributing to the good health profile of immigrants is their selection on the basis of health. Recent sociological research has shown that differences in the SES of immigrant streams is the key determinant of variations in health selection among immigrants with immigrants to the U.S. from all regions of the world having higher levels of positive health selection than immigrants
