School of Public Health

Summary

The project investigates the health consequences of major life events on immigrants and native-born persons. We examine whether and how these patterns vary across countries of origin, as wells as being married to a native, an immigrant from another country, and another immigrant from the same country of origin. 

to study how migration background intersects with other social characteristics, such as gender and migration background of the spouse, to shape immigrants’ health in host countries.

Detailed description

Immigrant populations are growing throughout the European countries, making understanding their health needs of increasing social importance. Thus, this project explores how contextual factors surrounding migration, e.g., order of arrival in the host country, are related to health.

We also study whether experiencing a major life event, e.g. spouse’s death, may be especially potent for immigrants with fewer resources or with cultural origins that are more distant from cultures prevalent in the host country. The findings will be instructive about whether minority and disadvantaged groups are especially vulnerable to the effects of stressful live events.

Publications

1. Jang, S.Y., Loi, S., van Lenthe, F.J., Oksuzyan, A., Myrskylä, M. Inequalities in multimorbidity between native-born and immigrant older adults across Europe. European Journal of Ageing 22:43 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-025-00879-5
2. Jang, S.Y., Oksuzyan, A., Myrskylä, M., van Lenthe, F.J., Loi, S. Immigrant-Native Health Disparities: Living Arrangements and the Speed of Chronic Disease Accumulation in Old Age. Social Science & Medicine 2025: 373; 117954. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117954
3. Jang, S. Y.; Oksuzyan, A.; Myrskylä, M.; van Lenthe, F. J.; Loi, S. Healthy immigrants, unhealthy ageing? Analysis of health decline among older migrants and natives across European countries. Social Science & Medicine Population Health 2023: 23. doi:10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101478
4. Oksuzyan, A., Drefahl, S., Aradhya, S., Caputo, J. Is it better to intermarry? Marital composition and suicide risk among native-born and migrant persons in Sweden. Eur J Population 39, 8 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-023-09650-x Caputo, J., Li, P., Kühn, M., Brønnum-Hansen, H., Oksuzyan, A. The Widowhood Effect on Mortality: A Comparison of Cross-National Immigrants and Native-Born Danes. Journal of Geron tology: Social Sciences Series B 2021; 76(10): 2155–2168. 
5. Caputo, J., Carollo, A., Mussino, E., Ahrenfeldt, L.J., Lindahl-Jacobsen,R., Drefahl, S., Oksuzyan, A. Gendered Spousal Order of Migration and Hospitalization among Immigrants to Denmark. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 2020: 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494820944724
6. Oksuzyan, A., Mussino, E., Drefahl, S. Gender differences in mortality in migrants and the Swedish-born population: Is there a double survival advantage for immigrant women? International Journal of Public Health 2019; 64: 377–386. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-019-01208-1