Poster #170 - Hope Trajectory among Recent Immigrant Latinx Adolescents: Links with Neighborhood Factors, Cultural Stress, Health Outcomes

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Integrative Statement

Latinx immigrant adolescents often arrive in the U.S. with high hopes. However, in the U.S., these adolescents can experience cultural stress and have negative neighborhood experiences, which can negatively impact their emotional and behavioral health (Mark & Coll, 2014). The loss in adolescent hope may explain the relationships of cultural stress and negative neighborhood experiences with adolescents’ emotional and behavioral health (see Yarcheski & Mahon, 2016 for a review). To explore the role of adolescent hope in the emotional and behavioral health of Latinx adolescents and parents, the present study aimed to: 1) model the hope trajectory among a sample of recent immigrant Latinx families; 2) explore how neighborhood factors and cultural stress may impact adolescent hope trajectories, and how hope trajectories may link with adolescents’ and parents’emotional and behavioral health outcomes.
Data came from a six-wave, school-based survey on acculturation, cultural stress, family functioning, and health among recent immigrant Latinx families. The sample consisted of 302 adolescent-caregiver dyads from Los Angeles (N = 150) and Miami (N=152) who had resided five years or less in the U.S. About 47% of the adolescent sample were female (Meanage = 14.51 years). About 74% of the parent sample consisted of mothers (Meanage = 41.09 years). Adolescents completed measures of neighborhood support, cultural stress (i.e., perceived discrimination, acculturative stress, and negative context of reception; Lorenzo-Blanco et al., 2016), past-30-day alcohol use and cigarette smoking, aggressive behaviors, rule-breaking behaviors, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms. Parents completed measures of neighborhood social cohesion, informal social control, extent of problems in the neighborhood, cultural stress, and depressive symptoms.
Latent growth curve modeling indicated that adolescent hope increased over time (T1 to T5, Figure 1). Moreover, as shown in
Table 1 and Figure 1, higher adolescent-reported neighborhood support and lower adolescent cultural stress at T1 were associated with higher initial levels (i.e., intercept) of adolescent hope. Additionally, results indicated that the adolescent hope intercept and slope were related to adolescents’ emotional and behavioral health as well as parents’ depressive symptoms at T6 (Table 1, Figure 1). Specifically, higher hope intercept predicted lower T6 adolescent rule-breaking, lower T6 depressive symptoms, and higher T6 adolescent self- esteem. Moreover, increases in adolescent hope (i.e., slope) predicted lower T6 adolescent rule-breaking, T6 aggressive behaviors, T6 adolescent depressive symptoms, and higher T6 adolescent self-esteem. Additionally, increases in adolescent hope were associated with lower T6 parent depressive symptoms.
The current study extends the adolescent hope literature by documenting that Latinx adolescents’ hope increased over time. Importantly, higher initial levels of and increases in adolescent hope predicted better emotional and behavioral health among adolescents and parents. Generally, our findings suggest that preventive interventions to improve the emotional and behavioral health of Latinx families could benefit from efforts to promote adolescent hope. This may be done by reducing cultural stress for adolescents and fostering adolescent neighborhood support. Future research could benefit from identifying factors that promote increases in adolescent hope. This knowledge could further inform preventive interventions to improve the health of Latinx families.

Authors

• Minyu Zhang, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Elma Elma Lorenzo-Blanco, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Unger, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Seth J. Schwartz, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author