Original article
Trajectories of Cultural Stressors and Effects on Mental Health and Substance Use Among Hispanic Immigrant Adolescents

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.12.011Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

We sought to determine the extent to which initial levels and over-time trajectories of cultural stressors (discrimination, negative context of reception, and bicultural stress) predicted well-being, internalizing symptoms, conduct problems, and health risk behaviors among recently immigrated Hispanic adolescents. Addressing this research objective involved creating a latent factor for cultural stressors, establishing invariance for this factor over time, estimating a growth curve for this factor over time, and examining the effects of initial levels (intercepts) and trajectories (slopes) of cultural stressors on adolescent outcomes.

Methods

A sample of 302 recently immigrated Hispanic adolescents in Miami (median of 1 year in the United States at baseline) and Los Angeles (median of 3 years in the United States at baseline) was recruited from public schools and assessed six times over a 3-year period.

Results

Perceived discrimination, context of reception, and bicultural stress loaded onto a latent factor at each of the first five timepoints. A growth curve conducted on this factor over the first five timepoints significantly predicted lower self-esteem and optimism, more depressive symptoms, greater aggressive behavior and rule breaking, and increased likelihood of drunkenness and marijuana use.

Conclusions

The present results may be important in designing interventions for Hispanic immigrant children and adolescents, including those within the present wave of unaccompanied child migrants. Results indicate targeting cultural stressors in interventions may have potential to improve well-being and decrease externalizing behaviors and substance use within this population.

Section snippets

Cultural stressors and their effects on health outcomes

Cultural stressors that operate in the lives of Hispanic adolescents, and that are linked with negative mental health and risk-taking outcomes, include perceptions of discrimination [12], a negative context of reception (NCR) [13], [14], and bicultural stress [15]. Perceived discrimination refers to negative interactions with others based on social group membership, such as being called derogatory names and being viewed with suspicion [16]. Context of reception refers to the opportunity

Participants

Participants were 302 recently immigrated adolescents from highly Hispanic areas of Miami-Dade and Los Angeles Counties. Participants were recruited primarily from the English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) classes. Adolescents were completing or entering the ninth grade at the time of the baseline assessment. The study was approved by the institutional review boards at the University of Miami, the University of Southern California, and each of the participating school districts.

The

Results

Analyses for the present study were conducted in four primary steps as follows: (1) defining a latent cultural stress variable at baseline; (2) examining invariance of this factor over time to ensure that we could include the factor in latent growth curve analyses; (3) estimating a latent growth curve for the cultural stress factor; and (4) examining effects of the cultural stress trajectory on outcome variables at Time 6, controlling for baseline levels.

Discussion

In this study, we evaluated the latent structure among three prominent cultural stressors, and examined how the longitudinal trajectory of this cultural stress composite predicted developmental changes in positive youth development, depressive symptoms, externalizing behavior, and substance use among Hispanic immigrant adolescents. Given the present political climate in the United States regarding Hispanic immigration, cultural stressors and their effects on developmental and health outcomes

Acknowledgments

We thank Maria-Rosa Velazquez, Tatiana Clavijo, Mercedes Prado, Alba Alfonso, Aleyda Marcos, Daisy Ramirez, Lissette Ramirez, and Perlita Carrillo for their hard work conducting assessments and tracking families; Dr. Judy Arroyo for her guidance and wisdom; and the study families for sharing their experiences with us.

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    Conflicts of Interest: Preparation of this article was supported by grants DA026594 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and AA021888 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to S.J.S., and by National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, grant 1UL1TR000460 to J.S.

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