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. 2023 Sep:83:103071.
doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103071. Epub 2023 Jul 6.

Urban residence and elevated blood pressure among migrant women in South Africa

Chantel F Pheiffer  1 , Stephen T McGarvey  2 , Carren Ginsburg  3 , Michael J White  4
Affiliations

Urban residence and elevated blood pressure among migrant women in South Africa

Chantel F Pheiffer et al. Health Place. 2023 Sep.

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that internal migration may be contributing to rising non-communicable disease risk in low- and middle-income countries in gendered and geographically differentiated ways. With 2018 baseline data from the Migrant Health Follow-Up Study, we investigate the relationship between internal migration and elevated blood pressure (BP) among 2163 rural-origin men and women in South Africa, testing for sex differences. To examine the influence of place, we test whether the migration-BP relationship differs by migrants' destination locations, controlling for household composition, social support, prior migration, and housing quality. We find that migration is associated with elevated BP only among women, and that this association is greatest for migrants living in Tembisa township. Our research underscores that gender and migration are important social determinants of noncommunicable disease risk in low-resource, rapidly-urbanizing settings.

Keywords: Blood pressure; Gender; Internal migration; Low- and middle-income countries; Non-communicable disease; South Africa; Urbanization.

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