Migrants often have a better health status than the host country's population (healthy migrant effect). If they come from a country with poor population health, they may not show this advantage (hypothesis H1). As a minority, they may be socioeconomically disadvantaged relative to the host population (H2), and their health may deteriorate quickly (H3). We examined if migrants from Eastern Europe have poorer health than Germans or experience faster declines in health. We tested H1-3 using longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel for 353 migrants from Eastern Europe and a random sample of 2824 age-matched Germans. We assessed health satisfaction (scale 0-10) as a proxy for health status, in relation to income, welfare dependency, and unemployment status. We compared changes between 1995 and 2000 among migrants, and between migrants and Germans. In 1995, male and female immigrants under 55 years had a significantly higher health satisfaction than Germans (differences 0.7-0.9, all p<0.005); there were no differences above age 54. By 2000, differences in health satisfaction in young ages were small and not significant. The OR of immigrants under 55 for being unemployed, in the lowest income quartile, and being on welfare were 2.4 [95%