< Back

Presenter: Juan B. Peña, Ph.D., C.S.W., University of Rochester Medical Center
Discussant / Mentor: William Vega, M.D., UMDNJ-RWJMS

The Healthy Immigrant Effect Among Latino Adolescents

Authors: Juan B. Peña, Luis Zayas, Guillermo Prado, Mildred M. Maldonado, Luis Torres

Background:
Hispanic youths of immigrant parents are healthier overall than those of parents born in the US and have lower incidence of problems across a range of health and mental health conditions (K. M. Harris, 1999). In response to these recent findings, some investigators have suggested that a number of common family and cultural factors that characterize newly-arrived Hispanic families serve to insulate children of immigrants from various negative influences in US society. This study investigated whether such a protective influence of immigrant status extended to behaviors that are risk factors for a myriad of poor outcomes including substance use, HIV risk , and mental health problems using a representative US sample of Hispanic youths.

Methods:
Data for this study was obtained from Add Health, a health/behavior survey of a large representative sample of U.S. adolescents in grades 7 – 12 (Kathleen Mullan Harris et al., 2003). The sub-sample used for this study was representative of Latino adolescents attending U.S. schools in the mid 1990’s. Logit and structural equation models were used to test for differences based on immigrant generation.

Results:
Results from this study suggest that more newly arrived Latino adolescents report lower likelihood to engage in a multitude of problem risk behaviors including suicide attempt, drug use, alcohol abuse, and having multiple sexual partners. They also report more familial and social resources including greater likelihood to come from a dual parent household, higher rates of religious involvement, and more parental monitoring.

Conclusion:
Prevention efforts targeting Latino youth should begin taking immigrant generation status into account in at least two ways. First to help identify sub-populations of high risk Latino youth and second to identify influencing factors that can be used to increase strengths and reduce risk factors in these
sub-populations of Latino youth.