# Research Supplement for Immigrant Families and Children's Health

> **NIH NIH R01** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $97,029

## Abstract

Project Summary of R01-MD01384
One in four children in the United States lives in an immigrant family, and at least one in twenty lives in a
mixed-immigration status family. While several studies have demonstrated the importance of a family’s
immigration status as a social determinant of child health – few have analyzed the role of immigration
policy in shaping child health outcomes. Previous analyses have been challenging because of the limited
availability of nationwide data sets containing the requisite measures of immigration status, and the use of
insufficiently-rigorous analytic techniques that are unable to go beyond statistical association. Our
interdisciplinary group has shown its capacity to overcome these issues in a recent study using state
Medicaid data and innovative analytic techniques to examine the impact of immigration policy on infant,
child, and maternal health. In our parent award, our overarching goal is to extend this capacity
nationwide by using Medicaid data to assess the impact of public policy on health care access, health-
service utilization, and health outcomes for US-born children of first-generation immigrant parents. We are
working to fulfill the following aims. Aim 1: to build a national, longitudinal, linked Medicaid data set to
examine the effect of immigration policies on children’s health. Aim 2: using this national database,
examine the impact of national immigration policy on child health (e.g., mental health) and health care
use (e.g., primary-care access, hospital utilization). Aim 3: examine state and local immigration policies to
determine the differential impact of various policies on immigrant parents and their US-born children. We
use eligibility requirements for Medicaid to identify immigrant mothers and their US born children, and
then use probabilistic matching (via household billing identification systems and birth records) to link
family units. To conduct the analyses in Aims 2-3, we will use causal inference research designs (such as
difference-in-difference) to explore the impact of external public policy changes – taking advantage of
“natural experiments” in policy implementation over time and across geographic areas. This includes
federal and state immigration policies (e.g., immigration laws, regulations that include or exclude
immigrants from particular services), state and local immigration actions (e.g.,
workplace-level and community-level enforcement), and federal and state health policies (e.g., federal
Medicaid legislation, regulation or guidance specific to prenatal care, pediatric care) that may differentially
impact first generation immigrant parents and their US-born children. We hypothesize that these policies
will have important intergenerational impacts on the health and wellbeing of US-born children of
immigrants. Answering these specific aims is essential to inform decision-making by policymakers, public
health leaders, and medical professionals who are committed to addressin...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10541788
- **Project number:** 3R01MD013844-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Jens Hainmueller
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $97,029
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-09-25 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10541788

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10541788, Research Supplement for Immigrant Families and Children's Health (3R01MD013844-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10541788. Licensed CC0.

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