Health and behavioral characteristics of immigrant wives in South Koea

As the number of foreign women who immigrate to marry Korean men increases, the need for health surveillance of these women surface as a public health issue. This presentation reports a case of a health examination completed with 3,609 immigrant wives in 2008. Mean age of the women was 30.3 years, 11.3 years younger than their husbands. About 50% of the women were recent immigrants who had come to Korea within 3 years. Most of the women were from South and East Asian countries (34.3% Vietnamese, 30.4% Chinese, 11.8% Filipina, 10.5% Japanese, and 5.4% Cambodian). Among these women, 15.6% were obese, 5.4% were hypertensive, and 44.1% needed Hepatitis B vaccination. Middle-aged immigrant wives had lower prevalence of diabetes than Korean women in the same age group. Health behavior patterns differed among immigrant wives by their country of origin. For example, South Asian women tended to eat more meat than East Asians, and Japanese and Vietnamese were less likely to eat fried food and more likely to eat regularly. Filipinas tended to eat and exercise regularly and not to be stressed much while they were more likely to be hypertensive and anemic. Cambodians were most diabetic. Meanwhile, age was a stronger factor associated with health behaviors and health problems. For these women who experience life-changing events of immigration and marriage simultaneously, public health assistance should fully consider cultural differences and acculturation in early intervention and long-term monitoring.