IMHO, the AMA should shut up when it comes to health care in Eastern Europe, for this country has no health care but health business.
Here is yet another angle, this time of the effects of living in the 'richest country of the world' on immigrant children, conducted by researchers at U of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill.
July 14, 1998
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (UPI) - Becoming
Americanized may be harmful to the health
of immigrant children.
Researchers have found that children born
abroad and who come to the U.S. with their
parents are healthier and engage in less risky
behavior than their American-born brothers
and sisters, and even their own American- born children.
In a national survey carried out by the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
researchers found that foreign-born children
living in the U.S. had better general health,
missed less school due to health or
emotional problems, had less learning
difficulties than their U.S.-born relatives.
Foreign-born children were also less obese,
suffered fewer cases of asthma. They also
engaged in less risky behavior involving
sexual intercourse, unprotected sex,
delinquency, violence and substance use.
Even among foreign-born youth, statistical
analysis showed the longer the time since
arrival in the United States, the poorer was
adolescents' physical health and the greater
the likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors.
Kathleen Mullan Harris, a professor of
sociology at the University of North
Carolina, says, ''People think immigrant
children are deviant and bad for our society.
''But in fact it's the other way around; we're
bad for them.''
She adds, ''The second generation has an
easier time adapting to U.S. society but that
but what that adaptation means in fact is
worse health. ''
Mexican, Central and South American,
Filipino and other Asian youth showed the
strongest negative effects from becoming
''Americanized,'' the research shows.
But Harris does not know why this is so.
She is continuing the analysis of the data
drawn from a survey of 20,000 adolescents,
and their parents, teachers, relatives, and
friends.
Much of the explanation according to Harris
is likely to be found in the children's families,
schools, peers and neighborhood.
From analysis of the data so far Harris has
found that parents exercise more control
over their foreign born children. They have
higher educational expectations of these
children.
She says, ''When you are an immigrant and
your child is an immigrant a parent will make
a special effort to give that child special
encouragement.''
Though some might be astonished at the
harmful effects of Americanization descents
of immigrants these results should be
expected according to J. Richard Udry, a
designer of the survey and professor of
sociology at the University of North Carolina
Udry says, ''We shouldn't be surprised that
this happens. We should be surprised if they
stayed just like the people in the countries
that they came from.''
A report on the study will appear later this
fall in the National Research Council book,
''Children of Immigrants: Health,
Adjustment, and Public Assistance.''
Copyright 1998 UPI. All rights reserved.