In the United States, immigrants without permanent residence comprise nearly one-third of the adult and child population born abroad. It is important to assess their health and service needs; however little is known about the demographics of this group. A new website developed by Penn State researchers, U.S. Migration Metrics, will provide data on the size and demographics of this population.
According to principal investigator of U.S. Migration Metrics project Jenny Van Hook, distinguished professor of sociology and demography and director of the Social Science Research Institute's Population Research Institute (PRI) at Penn State, U.S. Migration Metrics serves as an open data resource for researchers interested in studying the immigrant population. “Few national surveys include questionnaire items on immigrants’ legal status, and when available, these surveys are often met with skepticism due to their questionable validity. Our data archive generates detailed demographic estimates and projections of the immigrant population via a simple, easy-to-use website dashboard.”
U.S. Migration Metrics provides detailed estimates of the size of the immigrant population by demographic characteristics over time. The website’s interactive dashboard allows users to customized tables and graphics to examine trends and characteristics of the immigrant population. It also provides data visualizations, research briefs, and policy briefs produced by the research team and other leading scholars in the field.
“Compared with other individuals born in the United States, those born abroad have certain privileges or risks depending on their legal status,” said Nicole Kreisberg, assistant professor of public policy and sociology at Penn State and co-principal investigator on the project. “By providing accessible data on the legal status of the immigrant population, our dashboard can help policy makers, planners, service providers, and researchers evaluate the impact of new policies on health and well-being.”
The new website is part of the U.S. Immigration Program at Penn State, an academic team of researchers devoted to democratizing non-partisan data and information on the foreign-born population. The program is supported by the Pennsylvania Center for Latino Research, the PRI, and Penn State’s Migration Diversity Initiative (MDI).
Other researchers on the project include Medha Makhlouf, professor of law and founding director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson Law (legal and policy briefs); Hannah Persaud, project manager and PRI research assistant; Julia Pruett, pre-law international politics student (media and communication); Elliott Windrope, sociology and demography graduate student (data drops); Natalee Chin, sociology and demography graduate student (research briefs); and Scott Allen, public policy graduate student (policy briefs).