Legal Status Exposure, Health, and Kinship Networks among Latino Immigrants

This project explores how immigrant legal status exposures impact the health and wellbeing of older (50+) Latino immigrants. The unauthorized Latino foreign-born population in the US is currently aging in place, leading to a growing number of older Latinos who experienced years of hardship throughout their adult lives and, as older adults, are excluded from the US social safety net system. The aging of the Latino population is thus likely accompanied by two related trends: (1) dramatic increases in the share of older Latinos without full access to the public programs that have been shown to considerably reduce poverty and increase access to health care among older American citizens, and (2) increased reliance by older Latinos on kinship networks – chiefly their middle-aged children – for daily financial and health care needs. Our goal is to document these trends and explore how they impact the health and wellbeing of older Latinos. The project has three specific aims. This work is supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) (R01).