Introduction  In France, 10% of the population are immigrants and another 11% are children of immigrants. Both have worse mental health than the native French. The role of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) in immigrants’ mental health is not well characterized. We aimed to examine associations between immigration background, ACEs, and depressive symptoms.

Methods  Data came from the baseline and 2020 follow-up questionnaires of the French CONSTANCES study (n = 116,495), a national cohort. The exposure was immigration background categorized by immigration generation (1st : immigrants; 2nd : French-born with ≥ 1 immigrant parent; and native French) and the geographic origin of the participant (1st generation) or ≥ 1 parent (2nd generation). The mediator was experiencing ACEs. The outcome was depressive symptoms ascertained with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale at study inclusion. Mediation analysis using multivariable logistic regression and path analysis (PA) was used to assess associations between the exposure, mediator, and outcome, overall and stratified by sex, minimally adjusting for age and sex or adjusting for all covariates.

Results  The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 18.5%. In minimally adjusted models, compared to native French, there were higher odds of depressive symptoms in 1st and 2nd generation adults except those with ≥ 1 parent from Asia. Mediation effects of ACEs from PA ranged from 0.03 to 0.10. In the fully adjusted model including after adjusting for experiencing ACEs, only immigrants from North Africa had significantly increased odds of depressive symptoms (AOR = 1.52, 95%CI: 1.29, 1.79).

Conclusions  In France, non-native adults have higher prevalence and odds of depressive symptoms than the native French, with ACEs having a significant mediating effect.

Background Studies indicate that incidence of certain childhood cancers is lower in low-compared to high-income countries. By examining incidence in migrant populations in Sweden, we aimed to disentangle whether this is due to methodological factors, such as underreporting, or to genetic or environmental aetiology.

Methods In this nationwide, population-based cohort study, we grouped all children born in Sweden (1990–2019) as: Swedish background, 2nd generation, 2.5 generation (one foreign-born, one Swedish-born parent), or 3rd generation. Age-standardized incidence rates (ASR) for first childhood cancer identified in the National Cancer Register (ages 1–19) were calculated using the 2013 European standard population and are reported per 100,000 person-years [95% confidence intervals]. Incidence rate ratios (IRR) were calculated using Poisson regression adjusted for year of birth and sex. Using the same methods, we examined childhood cancer incidence by parental lineages separately, parental length of stay before birth, and World Bank income classification of parental country of birth.

Findings During 39,862,393 person-years of follow-up, 6797 children were diagnosed with cancer. The ASR of childhood cancer in Swedish background children was 17.18 [16.63–17.74], this was slightly higher in boys (18.20 [17.42–19.01]) than girls (16.09 [15.34–16.88]). The overall results were largely similar across migrant generations and parental length of stay. Lymphoma incidence was higher in 2nd generation (ASR 3.09 [2.53–3.78]) compared to Swedish background children (2.22 [2.02–2.44]). Children with migrant mothers from high-income countries had a higher incidence of leukaemia (ASR 5.88 [4.78–7.24]) compared to Swedish background children (4.31 [4.09–4.55]), whereas central nervous system tumour and leukaemia incidence was lower in children with mothers from low-income countries (2.64 [1.79–3.88], 3.66 [2.76–4.85], respectively) compared to Swedish background children (4.49 [4.24–4.75], (4.31 [4.09–4.55]). The pattern was similar for fathers from low-income countries and for IRRs.

Interpretation Finding lower incidence of CNS tumours and leukaemia among children born in Sweden to mothers from low-income countries challenges the hypothesis that low incidence of some childhood cancers in low-income countries is solely due to underreporting, but rather suggest that genetic or environmental factors may underlie these observations.

This brief report delves into the poverty dynamics of second-generation immigrant (G2) children in Sweden and Finland, comparing them with their peers from the majority population. These are unique contexts to examine such socioeconomic inequalities since they are the two highest ranked countries in terms of the Migrant Integration Policy Index. This study draws on longitudinal full-population register data from 2011–2019 for children aged 0–4. This study contributes to existing research by providing a detailed, up-to-date analysis of socioeconomic disparities between a wide range of second-generation immigrant groups and majority children during early childhood—a period widely recognized as critical for development and strongly influenced by work-family reconciliation and family welfare policies. Findings reveal significant inequalities with G2 children facing longer exposure to poverty, higher poverty persistence and higher poverty entry rates than majority children. Interestingly, the G2’s longer exposure to poverty is not due to a higher likelihood of remaining poor, but rather a greater risk of falling into poverty. The study underscores the severe poverty levels among some immigrant groups, G2 Somalis being the chief example, as a critical challenge to equality and social stability in both countries.

Background  Immigrants in Sweden, particularly those from low- and middle-income countries, had higher risks of COVID-19 mortality and morbidity compared to the Swedish-born. However, prior studies have not quantified the contribution of the differential distribution of health and social determinants to the increased risks.

Methods  We used total population registers from Sweden to investigate disparities in COVID-19 hospitalization between five groups of immigrants and Swedish-born, using a cohort 577911 working-age adults (18–65 years) living in Stockholm during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying a decomposition analysis, we quantified the relative contribution of age, sex, income, education, occupation type, residential area, and pre-existing medical conditions to these disparities.

Results  Our study shows that immigrants have higher risks of hospitalization compared to Swedish-born, and that the investigated factors accounted for these disparities to varying degrees across immigrant groups. For the most affected immigrant groups (from Africa and Middle East), the examined factors together account for only a minor part of the disparities (21% and 18% for Wave 1; 16% and 11% for Wave 2), with occupation type and residential area contributing substantially.

Conclusions  Common observable social determinants of health account for a moderate share of the overall disparities in COVID-19 hospitalizations between Swedish-born individuals and immigrant from the most affected regions of origin.

Armed conflict has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, with long-term negative health effects for current and future generations. This study analyzes birthweight in Colombia, where a long-standing conflict has created multiple stressors that may impair maternal and child health, including high levels of conflict mortality and anti-coca fumigation. We analyze births in 2000–2016 using Demographic and Health Survey data from 2004/2005, 2009/2010 and 2015/2016, which identified women's births in the last five years, combined with monthly information about local organized violence and anti-coca fumigation. Fixed effects models account for the mother's characteristics and pregnancy-related factors. We assess both main effects and heterogeneous effects according to the mother's level of education, exposure during different trimesters and at two levels of spatial aggregation, as well as the compounding risks of being exposed to both violence and fumigation. Our study shows that local exposure to organized violence during pregnancy is detrimental to intrauterine growth, resulting in lower birthweight. More localized exposure to fumigation was not significantly related to birthweight, potentially due to the low share of sampled women being exposed and selection into live birth. However, exposure measured at more aggregated levels significantly predicted reduced intrauterine growth. These within-family effects are particularly strong among less educated mothers. Further, our findings suggest compounding risks of exposure to both hazards. The findings indicate a scarring effect from armed conflict on newborns that may impair their future health and socioeconomic status outcomes. The results highlight the critical role that context plays in shaping individual health outcomes and the importance of intersectional approaches in future research and interventions.

Children of immigrants born in the host country–the second generation (G2)–face higher risks of unemployment and overqualification compared to the majority native population in Western Europe. While the health effects of unemployment and overqualification are well documented, it remains unclear whether these factors impact the mental health of the G2 in the same way as in the majority population. This study uses Swedish register data to examine the association between different labor market disadvantages, i.e., unemployment and overqualification, and mental health outcomes among the G2 and the majority population. The outcome was measured as time to the first prescription of psychotropic medications (anxiolytics, sedatives, hypnotics, and antidepressants). Descriptive findings showed that psychotropic prescription rates are higher among G2 groups compared to the majority population. Cox proportional hazards models, adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic factors, indicated that unemployment similarly impacts mental health across origin groups, suggesting that being unemployed does not contribute to the mental health inequality between the G2 and the majority population. G2 individuals, especially G2 European individuals, showed higher risks of psychotropic prescriptions across all employment types. These findings imply that improving the labor market position is not sufficient to address mental health inequalities between the G2 and the majority population.

The drivers behind the large-scale patterns of COVID-19 infections are largely unknown. Earlier studies have shown a connection between continentality, a measure for oceanic air influence over land, where lowest continentality implies highest oceanic influence, and COVID-19. In Europe, open west coasts with lowest continentality had the lowest COVID-19 incidence. We test if this applies to the US. We use a combination of geographical information systems and statistics, and data for every US county, to assess the connection between the COVID-19 death incidence and continentality. We normalize for known factors that influence COVID-19 local scale death incidence, namely the socio-economic status, population aged over 65, and the index of urbanization (crowding). We find that open west-coasts in the US, where continentality index values are low, had the lowest COVID-19 death incidence, rising non-linearly with rising continentality values, with highest death incidence in areas with the highest continentality, in north-central USA. The influence of oceanic air was associated with lower COVID-19 death incidence on the west coast of the US. These findings suggest that oceanic influence may be an important environmental determinant of spatial variations in COVID-19 death incidence and provide a contribution to studies on the relationship between oceans and health.

Separation often leads to worse economic consequences for women than for men. However, little is known about how economic consequences of separation play out for different groups of women. Women who are younger than their male partner are generally assumed to have lesser agency, but evidence mostly comes from contexts with low gender equality. Here, we examine women's benefit recipiency as a function of the partner age gap of their dissolved union. Using register data from Sweden, we examine whether women from man-older unions suffer greater economic disadvantage after separation, and whether patterns differ for ancestral Swedes and women with migrant background. Results from logistic regression models suggest that, post-separation, the uptake of social and housing benefits increases for nearly all groups of women. However, these data do not show any consistent disadvantages of women from man-older unions. Among ancestral Swedes, patterns differed by benefit type, and among women of African/Middle Eastern origin, benefit recipiency increases were inversely U-shaped to the age gap. Social norms do not appear to explain economic costs of separation, but may explain why the risk of separation itself differed between ancestral Swedish women and women with migrant background.

Introduction The native-born children of migrants represent one of the fastest-growing and most diverse young populations in the world today. A growing body of research highlights an elevated young adult mortality risk in this ‘second generation’ (G2) relative to the majority population at the same ages. Previous studies have tried to understand this increased risk by examining its association with inequality in the adult socioeconomic background (SEB) of the G2. Here, we instead analyse the association of second-generation status with childhood SEB.

Methods We use administrative register data from Sweden to fit multistate, competing-risk, flexible parametric survival models on a data set of 13404 deaths in 2.35million young adults. We examine mortality from all causes and specific causes of death at the generational level and by parental region of birth, both before and after having adjusted for childhood SEB.

Results The G2 have higher all-cause mortality hazard rates (HR=1.29 (95% CIs=1.23 to 1.34)) than the majority population before adjusting for childhood SEB. Following adjustment, the size of the hazard rate is smaller, but remains higher than the majority population (aHR=1.16 (95% CIs=1.11 to 1.21)). The G2 additionally experience persistent and higher hazard rates of mortality from suicide (aHR=1.29 (95% CIs=1.20 to 1.39)), substance misuse (aHR=1.41 (95% CIs=1.26 to 1.58)) and assault (aHR=2.54 (95% CIs=2.02 to 3.20)). By parental origins, similar patterns to those described are documented among G2 that have at least one parent born in Finland, the other Nordic countries, former Yugoslavia, the rest of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa, and Iran and Iraq. However, higher all-cause (aHR=1.42 (95% CIs=1.33 to 1.51)) and external-cause hazard rates of mortality (aHR=1.59 (95% CIs=1.48 to 1.72)) only persist among G2 with parent(s) born in Finland.

Conclusions G2 with various parental origins have higher mortality rates than the majority population do, and this difference is partly explained by their childhood SEB.

Background: Explanations for the disproportional COVID-19 burden among immigrants relative to host-country natives include differential exposure to the virus and susceptibility due to poor health conditions. Prior to the pandemic, immigrants displayed deteriorating health with duration of residence that may be associated with increased susceptibility over time. The aim of this study was to compare immigrant–native COVID-19 mortality by immigrants’ duration of residence to examine the role of differential susceptibility. Methods: A population-based cohort study was conducted with individuals between 18 and 100 years old registered in Sweden between 1 January 2015 and 15 June 2022. Cox regression models were run to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: Inequalities in COVID-19 mortality between immigrants and the Swedish-born population in the working-age group were concentrated among those of non-Western origins and from Finland with more than 15 years in Sweden, while for those of retirement age, these groups showed higher COVID-19 mortality HRs regardless of duration of residence. Both age groups of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East showed consistently higher COVID-19 mortality HRs. For the working-age population: Africa: HR<15: 2.46, 95%CI: 1.78, 3.38; HR≥15: 1.49, 95%CI: 1.01, 2.19; and from the Middle East: HR<15: 1.20, 95%CI: 0.90, 1.60; HR≥15: 1.65, 95%CI: 1.32, 2.05. For the retirement-age population: Africa: HR<15: 3.94, 95%CI: 2.85, 5.44; HR≥15: 1.66, 95%CI: 1.32, 2.09; Middle East: HR<15: 3.27, 95%CI: 2.70, 3.97; HR≥15: 2.12, 95%CI: 1.91, 2.34. Conclusions: Differential exposure, as opposed to differential susceptibility, likely accounted for the higher COVID-19 mortality observed among those origins who were disproportionately affected by the pandemic in Sweden.