• Posted October 17, 2025

Moving From Home Might Foreshadow Better Health In Old Age, Experts Say

FRIDAY, Oct. 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Moving away from a hometown can be a bittersweet experience, as people leave behind familiar comforts for a fresh start.

It also might be a sign of better future health, a new study says.

Americans who migrate within the United States have significantly better health than those who remain in their birth state, researchers reported Oct. 15 in the Journal of Ethnic and Minority Studies.

People who stayed put were more likely to become disabled as seniors, with a higher risk of vision and hearing problems, cognitive impairment, limitations in daily activities and physical weaknesses like difficulty walking or climbing stairs, researchers found.

“We found that older adults who stayed in their birth state had up to 22% higher odds of disability than internal migrants,” said lead researcher Katherine Ahlin, a graduate of the University of Toronto Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.

“This study provides the first large-scale evidence that internal migration in the U.S. is linked to better health in later life,” Ahlin said in a news release.

For the study, researchers analyzed 10 years of data gathered on 5.4 million older adults in the U.S., comparing disability between people who remained in their home states with people who moved away.

Results showed that people who left their home state had better health and less disability.

Researchers suspected that education might play a part. However, taking people’s education levels into account substantially reduced – but did not eliminate – the observed health advantage, researchers found.

“Educational attainment appears to play a dual role — both increasing the likelihood of migration and offering protection against disability,” researcher Alyssa McAlpine, an FIFSW graduate, said in a news release.

“However, internal migrants remained healthier even when we adjusted for education, which suggests that other factors like self-selection are also at play,” McAlpine said.

In other words, healthier people might choose to migrate, while those who are less healthy might stay put because moving would be too taxing, researchers said. Less healthy people also might choose to move back to their home states.

The team also found that immigrants from abroad had even lower odds of disability than internal U.S. migrants, with 7% to 33% lower odds of four types of disabilities – hearing problems, vision problems, cognitive impairment and mobility problems.

“This stronger health advantage among immigrants points to a more intense selection process where unhealthy individuals are less likely to overcome the multiple challenges of international migration,” said senior researcher Esme Fuller-Thomson, director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging at the University of Toronto.

“Barriers such as cost, distance and immigration policies likely reinforce this selection effect,” she said in a news release.

Overall, the results suggest that moving between states might signal a person’s resilience and their desire for opportunity, researchers concluded.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on immigrant and refugee health.

SOURCE: University of Toronto, news release, Oct. 15, 2025