Tod G Hamilton

Between 1960 and 2013, the number of black immigrants in the United States increased from approximately 125,000 to approximately 3,793,000 individuals. Although black immigrants only comprised 9 percent of the black population in the United States in 2012, over 16 percent of black children born in that year were the children of black immigrant women. If these trends continue, black immigrants and their descendants will play a significant role in driving the social, economic, and health trajectories of the country’s black population over the next several decades. While research suggests that black immigrants have more favorable health outcomes than their native-born counterparts, there are still significant gaps in understanding. Tod Hamilton is working on a project that investigates the magnitude of black immigrants’ health advantage, how these advantages differ among immigrants by both country of origin and arrival cohort, and whether health selection is a primary driver of nativity differences in health among blacks in the United States.