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Do young people with immigrant parents have better health?
A new study shows that young adults with immigrant parents are diagnosed with physical health conditions less often than those whose parents were born in Norway.
A new study finds that young adults born to immigrant parents in Norway generally have fewer diagnoses from specialist healthcare than their peers with Norwegian-born parents.
This is especially the case for those with two immigrant parents, or with an immigrant mother and Norwegian-born father.
By contrast, if the mother is Norwegian-born and the father an immigrant, young people are slightly more likely to be diagnosed with physical health conditions.
Better health or something else?
Do these findings reflect better health in young people with immigrant parents? Or are other factors at play?
“Although we can't rule out better health among youth with immigrant parents, the findings indicate that this group under-utilise healthcare services,” says Marte Kjøllesdal.
She is a professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
“Youth with immigrant parents may experience barriers to healthcare. Although they have no linguistic barriers and can seek healthcare without help from their parents, parental immigrant background may impact their children’s use of services," she says.
This influence may come indirectly through family attitudes towards health, illness, and healthcare-seeking behaviour, or directly through limited practical support or low parental health literacy during childhood.
The research team analysed health data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway and Statistics Norway. The study included over 1.5 million individuals aged 16–30.
Researchers focused on 37 categories of physical health conditions diagnosed between 2008 and 2022.
Place of origin matters
Diagnosis rates varied by region of parental origin:
- Children of parents from Asia and Africa generally had lower diagnosis rates for medical and neurological conditions.
- However, those with African-born parents had higher rates of certain infectious disease diagnoses.
When the researchers accounted for parental education and how long the parents had lived in Norway, the differences between groups became smaller.
This suggests that socioeconomic factors and familiarity with the healthcare system play a significant role.
“This underscores that immigrants and their children are a very diverse group, with differences in living conditions, health, and healthcare use,” says Kjøllesdal.
Is this the healthy immigrant effect?
A well-known concept in public health, the healthy immigrant effect, may play a role:
Immigrants often arrive in better health than the local population, despite facing challenges like lower income or education. This may be partly because healthier individuals are more likely to migrate.
Over time, however, this health advantage tends to fade due to stress, discrimination, or adopting less healthy habits. It also does not seem to carry over to the next generation.
Interestingly, earlier research shows that younger children (0–10 years old) with immigrant parents are more likely to be diagnosed with some conditions. This trend seems to reverse in young adulthood, as seen in the new study. The use of healthcare converges, it seems, as the children mature.
Comparisons with other Nordic countries
The researchers compared their findings with studies from other Nordic countries:
- In Finland, young adults with an immigrant father (but not mother) are slightly more likely to receive physical health diagnoses than native-born peers.
- In Denmark, no significant differences are observed between youth with immigrant parents and those with native-born parents.
“Our study clearly shows that youth with immigrant parents are less likely than their peers to be diagnosed for a physical health condition in specialist healthcare," says Kjøllesdal.
She notes that this indicates barriers to healthcare, but the exact nature of these barriers remains unclear. More research is needed to fully understand what is going on and to make appropriate recommendations.
Reference:
Kjøllesdal et al. Risk of Somatic Diagnoses in Specialist Health Care Among Norwegian-Born Youth and Young Adults with Immigrant Parents, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 2025. DOI: 10.1007/s10903-025-01689-8
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