Integrating social epidemiology into immigrant health research: A cross-national framework Dolores Acevedo-Garcia a, * , Emma V. Sanchez-Vaznaugh b, c , Edna A. Viruell-Fuentes d , Joanna Almeida e a Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, United States b San Francisco State University, United States c Center on Social Disparities in Health, University of California, San Francisco, United States d Department of Latina/Latino Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States e Simmons School of Social Work, Boston, United States article info Article history: Available online 25 May 2012 Keywords: Immigration Immigrant health Social epidemiology Cross-national Lifecourse Transnationalism abstract Scholarship on immigrant health has steadily increased over the past two decades. This line of inquiry is often approached as a “specialty” topic involving a discrete de-contextualized population, rather than a topic that is central for understanding patterns of population health within and between sending and receiving countries. Frequently immigrant health research employs theoretical frameworks (e.g., accul- turation) that emphasize cultural explanations, while less commonly utilized is the “social determinants of health” framework, which emphasizes social and structural explanations. Drawing upon literature in the fields of economics, sociology of immigration, and social epidemiology, we present a conceptual framework for understanding immigrant health from a cross-national perspective. We discuss the theoretical foundations of this framework; the methodological challenges for undertaking research on immigration and health using this framework; examples of emerging research in this area; and direc- tions for future research. Progress in immigrant health research and population health improvements can be achieved through an enhanced understanding of population health patterns in sending and receiving societies. Immigrant health research needs to be better integrated into social epidemiology. Concurrently, immigrant health research offers conceptual, empirical, and analytic opportunities to advance social epidemiological research. Together, scholarship in immigrant health and social epide- miology can make significant contributions toward one of their mutual and ultimate goals: to improve knowledge about population health. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Migration between countries is at higher levels than ever before. The movement of people across national boundaries influences economic development, labor, and population health (World Health Organization, 2010). In response to these trends, the number of policies with implications for immigrant health, and the number of studies on immigrant health have steadily increased over the last two decades. The realities of immigration have resulted in cross-national policy responses (Zimmerman, Kiss, & Hossain, 2011). National economies, the development of sending communities, and indi- vidual families in sending societies partly depend on immigrant productivity in receiving countries and the monetary remittances of immigrants (Inter-American Development Bank, 2009). Recog- nizing the importance of remittances for sending societies, along with the often limited access to health and social services for immigrants in receiving societies, some sending countries have established cross-national services to assist their immigrant co- nationals. Thus, it is increasingly recognized that health and social policies within and between countries can have substantial influence on the health of immigrants, their families, and the population health patterns within sending and receiving countries (Zimmerman et al., 2011). This wider recognition of the importance of cross-national processes, however, is not yet consistently re- flected in the scholarship on immigrant health. In addition, research on immigrant health is often approached as a “specialty” topic involving a discrete de-contextualized pop- ulation rather than a topic that is central for understanding patterns of population health within and between sending and receiving countries. Frequently, the health of immigrants in host * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: dacevedo@brandeis.edu (D. Acevedo-Garcia), emmav@ sfsu.edu (E.V. Sanchez-Vaznaugh), eviruell@illinois.edu (E.A. Viruell-Fuentes). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Social Science & Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/socscimed 0277-9536/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.04.040 Social Science & Medicine 75 (2012) 2060e2068