Dr. Daudet Ilunga Tshiswaka

Different socioeconomic and cultural disciplines, such as economics, anthropology, geography, political science, and heath, have enriched the notion of transnationalism, which, defined simply, is multiple connections and interactions linking people and institutions across the
borders of more than one nation-state. From a social sciences perspective particularly, scholars agree that transnationalism involves a sociocultural identity shaped by the interconnectivity between more than one geographically distant places. From a health perspective, this sustained interaction impacts the behavioral health of those who maintain transnational identities. Transnational Africans, for example, are driven by an interconnectivity between their countries of origin and their receiving countries--in this case--the US. In general, when transnational Africans resettle in the US, they come with established health behaviors and attitudes based on their experiences and cultural identity. Those established health behaviors then shape their perspectives and practices in the receiving country. Overall, there is a need for continual exploration within this field because the majority of studies that focusing on the interplay between health behaviors among blacks in the US do not disambiguate native-born from foreign-born, despite important health differences within these groups.