Immigration as a social determinant of troubled sleep in Canada: some evidence from the Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health

Abstract

Background: The literature pays very little attention to immigrants' sleep in Canada, although sleep is essential to individual health and well-being.

Analysis: Drawing data from the Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health, we aim to address this void by comparing troubled sleep among recent immigrants, established immigrants, and the native-born Canadians.

Results: Despite immigrants' declining health over time in Canada, our findings reveal that both recent and established immigrants report fewer cases of troubled sleep than their native-born counterparts. Recent (odds ratio [OR] = 0.70, 95% confidence intervals [CIs] = 0.62-0.79) and established immigrants (OR = 0.86, 95% CIs = 0.79-0.92) were less likely to report troubled sleep than the native-born at the bivariate level, although its significant impact for recent immigrants was completely attenuated when health status was controlled for (OR = 0.88, 95% CIs = 0.76-1.02). Established immigrants were still less likely to report fewer cases of troubled sleep than the native-born even after controlling for all control variables (OR = 0.88, 95% CIs = 0.81-0.96).

Conclusion: Based on these findings, we discuss that fewer troubled sleep cases reported by immigrants may be explained by their initial health advantage, resilience trajectory, and cultural interpretation of sleep. We also provide several suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Canadian Community Health Survey–Mental Health; Healthy immigrant effect; Social determinants of sleep; Troubled sleep.