Al extremo norte del puente aéreo: las puertorriqueñas en los Estados Unidos / To the northernmost part of the airlift bridge: the Puerto Ricans in the United States

ABSTRACT

This article examines the available data on the health status of Puerto Rican women in the United States. Statistics on reproductive health, cancer and AIDS indicate that the health status of these women is lower than that of both their U.S. and island counterparts. Usually, the health of immigrants lies somewhere between that of the population of the country of origin, and that of the 'host' country. Puerto Rican women, however, deviate from this pattern. The health lag which U.S. Puerto Rican women are experiencing suggests that the social dislocation which accompanies migration has not diminished over time. Puerto Rican women in the U.S., on the contrary, seem to have lost protective factors that shielded them from certain risks without acquiring the monetary, psycological, and information resources which would allow them to adopt preventive measures and make a more effective use of the existing health services