Immigration status and related policies have a significant impact on health outcomes. Yet major national health surveys currently provide little or no information about immigration status, rendering subgroups of noncitizens largely invisible. Even measures of citizenship, nativity, country of birth, and years in the United States, which provide critical information about immigration history, are not consistently included in national data sets. The main objections to asking directly about immigration status are that (1) such questions are too stigmatizing, risking lower response rates and inaccurate responses; and (2) answering the questions may expose respondents to possible immigration or criminal consequences. Our analysis shows that these objections are unfounded or can be mitigated. National health surveys have evolved over the past decades to include questions about mental health, substance use, sexual orientation, and gender identity-topics once assumed to be too stigmatizing to ask about, with possible negative legal consequences. We argue that the time has come to obtain more detailed information about immigration status as well as to consistently include the measures of immigration history mentioned so that we can better evaluate the health consequences of immigrant-related policy choices. (Am J Public Health. 2025;115(1):75-82. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307867).

中文翻译：

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将出生地、公民身份和移民身份添加到健康监测和调查数据中。


移民身份和相关政策对健康结果有重大影响。然而，目前主要的全国性健康调查很少或根本没有提供有关移民身份的信息，这使得非公民的亚群体在很大程度上被忽视。即使是公民身份、出生地、出生国和在美国的年份的衡量标准，这些都提供了有关移民历史的关键信息，但并未一致地包含在国家数据集中。直接询问移民身份的主要反对意见是 （1） 此类问题过于污名化，可能导致回复率降低和回答不准确;（2） 回答问题可能会使受访者面临可能的移民或刑事后果。我们的分析表明，这些反对意见是没有根据的，或者可以减轻。在过去的几十年里，全国健康调查已经发展到包括有关心理健康、药物使用、性取向和性别认同的问题——这些话题曾经被认为太污名化而无法询问，并可能产生负面的法律后果。我们认为，现在是时候获取有关移民身份的更详细信息，并始终如一地纳入上述移民历史的衡量标准，以便我们能够更好地评估与移民相关的政策选择的健康后果。（美国公共卫生杂志，2025 年;115(1):75-82.https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307867）。