2.3.1 Immigrants’ Mothers in Taiwan
Most of the immigrant mothers in Taiwan come from Southeast Asia, and 90% of them are Vietnamese and Chinese (Lin & Xiao, 2007). Problems involving these immigrant mothers in Taiwan have increased in recent years. These include social maladjustment, marital discord, domestic violence, and child- rearing difficulties. In particular, low literacy is associated with a variety of adverse social problems among immigrant populations (Xia, 2003). In order to cater for these immigrant mothers’ health, the Taipei City Government set up a ‘Eugenics and Health Services Centre for brides from Foreign Countries and Mainland China’ at Taipei Municipal Women and Children’s Hospital in 2003, while Taichung City Government also established ‘Designated Outpatient Services for Pregnant Immigrants’ at Taichung Municipal Hospital in 2005. Due to the growing importance of immigrant mothers, recent years have seen increased attention being given to healthcare issues. Not only do service
Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian, but they also recruit volunteer interpreters who have lived in Taiwan for years to provide a translation service for immigrant mothers consulting physicians. Yet, these considerate policies do not seem to be practicable for a minority of new immigrants, racks of health information leaflets in clinics are often ignored and it is proving hard to implement a training programme for volunteer interpreters (Chen et al., 2007).
2.3.2 Immigrants’ Children in Taiwan
According to the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the number of immigrant children is growing by 10% every year and it is estimated that, by 2014, one in seven students in elementary school will be the child of an immigrant mother. Since their mothers are almost all new immigrants from south-east Asia, they are called ‘New Taiwanese Sons’. These children mainly come from low- income families, and usually their fathers are burdened by disease and low social status, while their mothers have a low level of education and suffer from the language barrier (Hung, 2005).
Due to the growing importance of ‘New Taiwanese Sons’, there has recently been an increase in the research devoted to this population. For example, Wu (2005) indicates that immigrant women tend to have a greater number of underweight births than non-immigrant women. Low birth weight (LBW) is the most significant determinant of neonatal mortality and morbidity, and this may continue throughout life. Hung (2005) investigated whether or not the father’s health status was significantly associated with that of the child, and found that
moderately ill Taiwanese men are more likely to marry women from Southeast Asia, while seriously ill men are more likely to find their spouses in Mainland China. Children of ill fathers relatively tend to suffer from delayed development, disability and critical illnesses. Jhuang (2008) conducted a cross-sectional research to survey a total of 7,574 immigrant mothers with children under 12 years old in terms of the children’s injuries, and the results showed that falls (46.67%) were the leading cause of the unintentional injury of foreign spouses' children, followed by trauma (38.32%), choking (3.35%), and drowning or poisoning (0.69%). Fu (2009) tried to understand the nutritional condition, diet and of the children of immigrant mothers. He conducted face-to-face interviews with 60 families with mothers from Mainland China and Southeast Asia and children between the ages of 4 and 6 living in southern areas of Taiwan. The study found that the children’s gender, their parents’ educational background, and the father’s age all had an apparent influence on the amount of nutrients the children took. The frequency of food intake, the father’s educational background and age, the mother’s age, and the family income all caused apparent differences in the children’s diet. In addition, Chen et al. (2009) explored the medical services and social supporting network for immigrant mothers in Taizhong and Yunlin County, and found that many immigrant mothers were in dire need of health education. They suggest that the entire process of health education should include pregnancy, childbirth, and the nursing of the baby. Low literacy also significantly affects the effectiveness of health education, so it would be better to provide immigrant mothers with a graphic explanation rather than a literal description.
2.3.3 Children’s Allergies in Taiwan
Recent surveys indicate that more than 20% of children in Taiwan suffer from allergies. Atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis, and bronchial asthma are the most common child allergic diseases in Taiwan (Zhou & Wu, 2012).Therefore; this study will focus on the transfer of healthcare information related to these three diseases. Atopy is one of the most common immune disorders underlying atopic dermatitis (AD), allergic conjunctivitis (AC), allergic rhinitis (AR), and bronchial asthma (BA) (Tomida et al., 2002). Among these prevalent allergic diseases, literature related to healthcare information about AD and BA is much represented. AD is a chronic inflammatory skin disease which occurs mainly in childhood, and it is a pervasive health problem in developed countries. Even though it has been reported that the incidence of AD in children is closely linked to the prevalence of AD in their parents, in fact, a variety of environmental factors, such as environmental pollutants and microbial infection, are also implicated in the increased occurrence of AD (Abramowitz, 2005; Von Mutius, 2000). On the other hand, asthma is a chronic disease that causes coughing, wheezing, and breathlessness resulting from a complex interplay between environmental exposure and genetics. It has been reported that there are more than 22 million asthmatics in the US, 30% of them are children. It is the most common reason for childhood hospitalisation which affects an estimated 5-10% of children at ages 0-18. Especially, the national prevalence rate of asthma has exceeded 20% in certain low-income populations (Clark et al., 2002; Wu et al., 2007; Hong,
2010).
A quarter of low-income children in the United States are members of immigrant families, and these children are in worse physical health than those from non-immigrant families and use healthcare services significantly less frequently. This is because children from lower income families are more than 5 times likely than children from higher income families to lack health insurance coverage and are almost twice as likely to lack the usual sources of sick care (Huang et al., 2006). Children with chronic diseases are highly dependent on their parents for the management of their health care. However, ways to design effective children’s health promotional platform to enhance parents’ cognition, promote their active processing, and increase their frequency of interaction, is still at an early stage of development.