Grant: Operating Grant

Immigrants are an important part of the fabric of Canada. More than half of the 225,000 newcomers to Canada each year choose Ontario as their destination. Immigrant women comprise 25% of the approximately 380,000 live births in Canada each year; in Ontario, they represent 37% of all births. Canada increasingly receives immigrants from world regions (e.g., India, Sub-Saharan Africa) where maternal illness and mortality may be up to 100 times higher than that in Canada. However, little is known about how serious illnesses in the perinatal period affect immigrant mothers to Canada and their offspring. We will study 1.35 million deliveries in Ontario in the past decade to identify those immigrant groups at highest risk of severe maternal and newborn baby illness and mortality. The approximately 400,000 immigrants that we will study will be differentiated from Canadian-born women, and further compared on indicators of their immigration status (i.e., country of origin, time since immigration and refugee status). We have the research capacity and partnerships to help Canadian healthcare providers and policy makers optimally identify those immigrant mothers (and their infants) who can benefit from focused, and, perhaps, language-specific and culturally attuned care.