Commentary: Of salmon and time travellers—musing on the mystery of migrant mortality

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Abstract
Socioeconomic status is known to be strongly and inversely associated with mortality: those who are poor, unemployed, or have a low educational attainment experience higher mortality than the rich, employed, and well-educated. Immigrants tend to have, on average, a lower socioeconomic status than the majority population of the destination country. And yet, their mortality, overall as well as for certain specific causes, is often lower in comparison—a paradox.1 In this issue of the journal, Singh and Hiatt2 report similar findings from the US. Foreign-born persons of all four major racial/ethnic groups—Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic whites—have a mortality advantage relative to the US-born. Levels of socioeconomic achievement among many immigrant groups, however, are comparatively lower. The reasons for this puzzling finding again remain elusive. What implications for future migrant research in epidemiology should this have?