# Immigrant enclaves: Conferring health advantages or creating health disparities in Chinese immigrants?

> **NIH NIH R01** · RESEARCH INST OF FOX CHASE CAN CTR · 2020 · $789,578

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The US has the world's largest immigrant population. As most arrive from countries with lower prevalence of
obesity and related chronic conditions, a common trajectory is for these rates to rise to converge with or even
exceed rates in US whites. This rise underlies the development of numerous health disparities among
immigrant/ethnic groups. A primary theory to explain the rise in risk is acculturation, but few longitudinal studies
on acculturative and health trajectories have been conducted among immigrants, and trajectories are also likely
to be heterogeneous: Acculturation may be limited in ethnic enclaves (self-contained neighborhoods with high
residential density of immigrants), and ethnic enclaves themselves differ. Despite a presumed, beneficial `ethnic
density effect,' for example, traditional immigrant enclaves can be settings for economic exploitation and curtailed
social ties and networks; newer, emerging enclaves outside of city centers might provide the same social
resources without the disadvantages of a self-contained, traditional enclave. The experience of Chinese
immigrants, among the fastest growing US ethnic groups, is uniquely informative in this regard, exhibiting
considerable spatial diversity and variability in chronic disease risk. Indeed, Asian immigrants encapsulate the
entire range of risk, from low to high, as a result of environmental and individual-level factors still to be clarified.
Immigrant enclaves offer a framework in which to examine disease risk transitions and to explore the combined
roles of acculturative and psychosocial pathways. Towards this end, we propose to study health trajectories in a
sample of Chinese immigrants using a longitudinal design to capture changes in acculturation, psychosocial
factors, and markers of cardiometabolic risk (CMR). We will recruit a cohort of 600 Chinese immigrants in the
Philadelphia region, including residents of traditional, emerging, and non-enclave neighborhoods. Specific aims
are to: (1) Compare CMR of immigrants in three neighborhood types (traditional, emerging, and non-enclaves);
and (2) Explore pathways that may mediate enclave effects on health – in particular, acculturative and
psychosocial factors. Data collection will include interviews (including acculturation and measures of
psychosocial stress and social resources); 4 days of dietary recalls; anthropometry; blood pressure; and blood
samples for assessing risk markers including triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and
fasting glucose. Overall, we seek to determine whether and how conditions in one context set a better trajectory
for immigrants, or underlie the development of future health disparities. Our model challenges two primary and
widely held beliefs: that US Chinese immigrants are a low risk population, and that enclave residence uniformly
provides health benefits that keep immigrants at low CMR. The proposed work will allow for a direct comparison
across enc...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9840403
- **Project number:** 5R01MD012621-03
- **Recipient organization:** RESEARCH INST OF FOX CHASE CAN CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Carolyn Y. Fang
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $789,578
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-05-02 → 2022-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9840403

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9840403, Immigrant enclaves: Conferring health advantages or creating health disparities in Chinese immigrants? (5R01MD012621-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9840403. Licensed CC0.

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