PARA-MOR ‘Living longer in poorer health? Understanding the immigrant morbidity-mortality paradox’ 

If the global migrant population all lived in a single country, it would be the fifth largest country in the entire world. The rapid rise and diversification of contemporary worldwide migration has no precedent in history. There is consistent evidence that migrant populations live longer than non-migrant populations do. However, this advantage is regularly absent or even reversed for migrant morbidity (i.e., diseases and medical conditions). This is alarming because it suggests that migrants are living longer lives in worse overall health than non-migrants are. With migrants’ ageing in place, this should constitute one of the most highly relevant social and public health concerns today. Yet, beyond evidence from disparate data sources of variable quality and coverage, there is a distinct absence of direct, coherent, empirical knowledge of this ‘paradox’. To address this, PARA-MOR aims to establish the causes of, mechanisms behind, and consequences of whether migrants are living longer lives in worse health than non-migrants are. The project will use cutting-edge statistical methods to analyse large-scale secondary data on morbidity and mortality from a range of major migrant receiving-countries. PARA-MOR has the exciting potential to transform the limited way in which the health of migrants is currently conceptualised and understood, revolutionise how we investigate migrant health, centralise the role of migrant health within changes to wider population health, and directly inform a diverse array of national and international migrant health policies. 

Funder

The £1,304,741 PARA-MOR project is funded by the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) Horizon Europe Guarantee Scheme (European Research Council [ERC] Starting Grants 2023). 

Project Period

November 2024 – November 2029

Team

PARA-MOR is being led by Associate Professor Matthew Wallace