Strangers in a familiar land: the psychological consequences of internal migration in a developing country.

There is still much that we do not know about the effects of international migration on mental health, but we know even less about the mental health consequences of rural-to-urban migration. This may be particularly important in developing countries where the health of internal migrating populations may affect economic development. We use a large representative sample of adults residing in Kathmandu, Nepal to investigate the utility of a stress process model for understanding the mental health effects of rural-to-urban migration. Because our sample contains both migrants and non-migrants, we are able to compare the importance of stressors common to all urban dwellers and those specific to migrants (i.e. acculturation stressors) as they affect the well-being of urban residents. Results show that acculturation-related stressors and social support problems are less salient for explaining distress and mental health symptoms than common stressors and social support problems. Migrants do face more chronic stressors, have more social support problems and report higher levels of distress and symptoms. We speculate that this has more to do with the social inequality that results from migration than with specific migration-related stressors or loss of social resources. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]