Professor Shirin Montazer gives Brown Bag talk

Assistant Professor Dr. Shirin Montazer gave her first Humanities Center Brown Bag talk at Wayne State University on Wednesday, February 25, 2015. Dr. Montazer, who recently joined WSU Sociology in August 2014, presented her paper "Unequal Mental Health Outcomes: the Depression Trajectory of Immigrants to Canada."

This paper re-examines the study of immigrant mental health by arguing that the level of economic development, as measured by level of GNP of country of origin, alters the initial and subsequent mental health trajectories -- measured by depression -- over time. Using five-waves of longitudinal survey data from the National Population Health Survey of adults living in three Metropolitan cities in Canada (N=2,891), results show a clear pattern of change in depression, but mainly among immigrants from lower GNP countries of origin. Change in stress exposure and mastery explains the trajectory in depression of immigrants from lower GNP backgrounds. The initial mental health advantage found exclusively in this group of immigrants remains unexplained, suggesting that either this group is the most selected or that other factors account for this association .

Dr. Montazer is a researcher in the area of Immigration and Mental Health with a particular focus on the relationship between the level of economic development of country of origin, length of residence and/or generation, and the health outcome of immigrants.