Social networks, social capital, and HIV risks among migrants

Migration has become a global phenomenon, encompassing massive numbers of people in different parts of the world and has become one of the most important determinants of global health and social development (Carballo, Divino, &Zerci, 1998). The majority of migrations within or between countries involves people moving from less to more economically developed countries or regions. These types of migration are highly selective from a health point of view, termed the 'healthy migrant' selection: unhealthy persons are less likely to move, while the immigrants are healthy, and are even generally healthier than native populations in the new country, showing lower rates of chronic diseases and disabilities (Chen, Ng, &Wilkins, 1996). Despite this apparent advantage, immigrants are vulnerable to other health problems that often arise from social conditions created after immigration, particularly communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis (TB), sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS (Carballo et al., 1998). Mobility and migration have thus become an important factor in the global spread of HIV (Haour-Knipe &Rector, 1996). It is one of the structural factors within an ecological perspective that views the risk for disease in general, and to HIV in particular, as arising not only from individual factors but from a combination of factors that determine social vulnerability to disease (Parker, 1996). The social environment is, therefore, crucial to an immigrant's adjustment and integration and in determining outcomes in terms of health status.