Approaching Migrant Health in New Zealand

There has been a global increase in incidence of tuberculosis (TB) over the last decade and rates of TB show wide disparities between migrants and host populations. New Zealand has followed this global trend where foreign-born people have a TB rate 10 times that of New Zealand-born. This book is an ethnographic study of Indian, Korean and Chinese migrants who live in New Zealand and uses TB as a lens to understand how their experiences of migration and settlement impact on their health. The study demonstrates how structural inequalities stemming from policy, social discrimination and employment opportunities create stressful environments for migrants and impact on their health and well being. In addition, transnational experiences of health care systems, lack of Asian health care professionals, interpreters and cultural stigma surrounding TB create barriers to TB diagnosis and treatment for migrants, contributing to inequalities in TB rates between host and migrant populations. This book will be of value to social scientists interested in migrant health, tuberculosis, political ecology and medical anthropology