Vintage Wine in New Bottles: Infusing Select Ideas into the Study of Immigration, Immigrants, and Mental Health

The metaphor vintage wine in new bottles imagines how ideas from immigration studies, social psychology, and cultural sociology add novel insights about how the social context and social relationships of immigrant lives are linked to well-being. This article describes a few patterns in research studies that have addressed whether immigrants have higher or lower rates of mental health problems than their U.S.-born counterparts. It discusses a few past approaches to explain the differences in mental health outcomes. The article concludes with select concepts and tools from other sociological fields that may invigorate research on immigrants and their health and mental health.