Public health practitioners working with Latinx families in the United States must consider the historical contexts of colonization and slavery that have created conditions of violence, displacement, and social and economic marginalization throughout Latin America. Although shared experiences of colonization, dispossession, and migration affect all Latinxs, diverse national histories and sociopolitical contexts, migration patterns, and intersecting identities (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Experiences of stressful life events (SLEs) during childhood are associated with greater risk for youth psychopathology. Although SLEs are reported in greater frequency by Latinx families, Latinx populations remain largely absent in the SLE literature. Furthermore, Latinx populations face added stressors related to socio-political climate, acculturation, and racism and discrimination.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh levels of burnout among healthcare providers (HCPs) have been a widely documented phenomenon, which have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, qualitative studies that are inclusive of HCPs in diverse professional roles have been limited. Therefore, we utilized a qualitative-quantitative design to examine professional quality of life in terms of compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress among hospital-based HCPs, including social workers, hospitalists, residents, and palliative care team members during COVID-19.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProg Community Health Partnersh
January 2024
Background: The Community Engagement Studio (CE Studio) method has emerged as a valuable model for community participation in health innovation research, and we advance the model by expanding the timing and number of CE Studio sessions, as well as facilitation.
Objectives: The authors expanded the CE Studio method first to include five sessions corresponding to five phases of innovation: a) health experiences, b) community readiness,c) design features, d) adoption, and e) sustainability. Community experts were engaged throughout the duration of the research.
Latino immigrant families in the United States were disproportionately affected by intensified interior immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. US-citizen children are victimized by policies targeting their immigrant parents; research is sparse regarding how these polices affect children who experience parental deportation children who are at risk for parental deportation. Additionally, anti-immigrant rhetoric can result in increased discrimination that also threatens children's psychological health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the wellbeing of the general US population, but even more so among Latinx young adults. The current study provides a detailed picture of the emotional wellbeing and coping of Latinx young adults during the first summer of the pandemic. Six virtual focus groups (n = 21) were conducted between May and August of 2020 with a community-based sample of Latinx young adults to explore (1) how the pandemic affected wellbeing and (2) how they coped with pandemic-related stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaternal depressive symptoms are linked with child internalizing concerns, such as depressive symptoms. The impact that maternal depressive symptoms have on the onset and maintenance of child depressive symptoms might be especially salient in families of color who are low-income because of elevated rates of maternal depressive symptoms and environmental stressors in those populations. The relationship between maternal and child depressive symptoms might be partially explained by a child's capacity to flexibly respond to stressors in the environment, a construct known as adaptability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor many Latinx young adults, COVID-19 has exposed exclusionary policies that heighten risk for contracting the virus and that leave them and their parents unprotected. This study has a dual purpose; first, to quantitatively examine immigration policy impacts of discrimination, isolation, threats to family, and vulnerability, and their association to economic consequences experienced by Latinx young adults in Central Texas during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, to qualitatively explore how policy impacts affected Latinx young adults during the pandemic, and the coping mechanisms they utilized to minimize these impacts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMental health professionals in schools and the community are often overburdened and underfunded in high-need areas, limiting their capacity to deliver needed family-based mental health interventions. To address this issue, paraprofessional school personnel (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLatinx young adults 18-25 years old face unique challenges that disproportionately put them at high risk of experiencing health as well as economic and social burden due to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The present study examined how economic and psychosocial consequences as a result of the pandemic were associated with mental health issues among a community sample of Latinx young adults ( = 83) from Central Texas. Participants completed an online survey of COVID-related experiences and mental health needs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the present article, we explore the hopes that immigrant parents of Mexican origin have for their children and the strategies they employ to foster such hopes in light of immigration status, immigration climate, and transnational lived experiences. We conducted six focus groups with 42 immigrant parents of Mexican origin living in Arizona and Texas to explore their hopes and strategies used to foster hopes. Parents, the majority of whom were mothers, defined hopes in terms of what they can provide to their children, including (a) a better life through education and economic opportunities, (b) a strong moral and civic upbringing, and (c) safety from neighborhood crime and hostile immigrant climates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) framework has contributed to advances in developmental science by examining the interdependent and cumulative nature of adverse childhood environmental exposures on life trajectories. Missing from the ACEs framework, however, is the role of pervasive and systematic oppression that afflicts certain racialized groups and that leads to persistent threat and deprivation. In the case of children from immigrant parents, the consequence of a limited ACEs framework is that clinicians and researchers fail to address the psychological violence inflicted on children from increasingly restrictive immigration policies, ramped up immigration enforcement, and national anti-immigration rhetoric.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: We examined the association of exposure to maternal depression during year 2 of a child's life with future child problem behavior. We conducted a secondary analysis to investigate whether race/ethnicity is a moderator of this relationship.
Methods: We used Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study data (age 3 N = 3288 and 49% Black, 26% Hispanic, 22% non-Hispanic White; age 5 N = 3001 and 51% Black, 25% Hispanic, 21% non-Hispanic White; age 9 N = 3630 and 50% Black, 25% Hispanic, 21% non-Hispanic White) and ordinal logistic regression to model problem behavior at ages 3, 5, and 9 on maternal depression status during year 2.
Am J Community Psychol
September 2020
We examined the differential impact of having a family member, friend, or co-worker/community member detained or deported on the mental health of US citizens. In 2019, a sample of 3446 adult participants of White, Black, and Latinx racial/ethnic descent were recruited to complete an online questionnaire. Participants completed the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 to screen for anxiety, depression, and psychological distress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe present study illuminates the emotions of mixed-status families as they anticipated the 2016 Presidential election. From a 6-year longitudinal case study of four Mexican immigrant families, we present interviews from May of 2016, prior to the presidential primaries, and from November of 2016, the day before or the day of the presidential election. Using a multiple case study method (Stake, 2006, Multiple case study analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaternal depression is a risk factor for the development of problem behavior in children. Although food insecurity and housing instability are associated with adult depression and child behavior, how these economic factors mediate or moderate the relationship between maternal depression and child problem behavior is not understood. The purpose of this study was to determine whether food insecurity and housing instability are mediators and/or moderators of the relationship between maternal depression when children are age 3 and children's problem behaviors at age 9 and to determine whether these mechanisms differ by race/ethnicity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA strong relationship exists between maternal depression and externalizing and internalizing problems in children, and caregiving burden might mediate this relationship. Yet, caregiving burden has rarely been tested as a mechanism underlying the relationship between maternal depression and child emotional and behavioral outcomes. Caregiving burden might be especially high in ethnic and racial minority mother-child dyads in low-income settings where there are more stressors in the environment and rates of maternal depression are elevated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFathers play a critical role in recognizing and responding to maternal depression and providing support to the family during the mothers' illness and recovery. Our study adopted a dualmethod approach consisting initially of sample interviewing with 10 Mexican immigrant fathers, about their partner's depression and recovery, co-parenting, and fathers' coping. Fathers, their partners, and children participated in a family intervention to support the mother's recovery and address the needs of the family.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite increased recognition of disparities in youth mental health, racial/ethnic disparities in mental health burden and in mental health service use persist. This phenomenon suggests that research documenting disparities alone has not led to extensive action in practice settings in order to significantly reduce disparities. In this commentary, we present a framework to actively target this research-to-practice gap by describing the development of a resource titled, "Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Racial and Ethnic Minority Youth-A Guide for Practitioners.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe psychological experience of maternal depression and its impact on immigrant Latina/o families often goes unrecognized and unaddressed. Children may feel especially helpless and confused about the changes they observe in their mothers' mood and behavior, and about the deterioration of family relationships. Given the interdependence of family structures of immigrant Latina/o households, maternal depression can be detrimental to Latina/o youth attributions and coping strategies, and to their relationship with their mothers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn response to U.S. federal mandates to increase the presence of underrepresented populations in prevention research, investigators have increasingly focused on using culturally sensitive research practices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs family researchers and practitioners seek to improve the quality and accessibility of mental health services for immigrant families, they have turned to culturally adapted interventions. Although many advancements have been made in adapting interventions for such families, we have yet to understand how the adaptation can ensure that the intervention is reaching families identified to be in greatest need within a local system of care and community. We argue that reaching, engaging, and understanding the needs of families entails a collaborative approach with multiple community partners to ensure that adaptations to intervention content and delivery are responsive to the sociocultural trajectory of families within a community.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWomens Health Issues
December 2017
Background: Health care providers are better able to diagnose depression and initiate treatment when patients disclose symptoms. However, many women are reluctant to disclose depressive symptoms. Little is known about the experience of disclosing depression symptoms in primary care among racially and ethnically diverse women across the life course.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis pilot study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcomes of a linguistically and culturally adapted intervention for immigrant Latina mothers with depression and their families. Fortalezas Familiares (Family Strengths) is a community-based, 12-week, multifamily group intervention that aims to increase communication about family processes leading up to and affected by the mother's depression, build child coping and efficacy, enhance parenting competence and skills, and promote cultural and social assets within the family. In terms of feasibility, of 16 families who enrolled and participated in the intervention, 13 families attended more than 90% of meetings and completed the intervention.
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