Taking heterogeneity seriously: Black immigrant life expectancy in the United States.

The article by Hendi and Clevenstine (Am J Epidemiol. 2025;195(6)) documents notably high life expectancy among US Black immigrants, accounting for almost 15% of the increased Black life expectancy between 1994 and 2019, as well as an extreme rise in mortality among Black immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. These results are credible in spite of the significant data and analytic challenges intrinsic to the research question. They suggest the need for new avenues of research, including research that is attentive to substantial changes in Black immigrants' origins and situations, research that reinterprets Black/White trends in light of a changing population composition, and research into the drivers of pandemic-era mortality. Much of the research on Black/White trends has homogenized the Black population, and these results dramatize the analytical weaknesses of failing to take heterogeneity seriously.