1-185 - Understanding the Impact of Sociocultural factors on Latino youth’s Mental Health and Academic Achievement

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Latino youth are often faced with stressful life experiences ranging from acute exposure to economic stress and discrimination, to the daily hassles of navigating multiple cultures and languages. This complex developmental context in which Latino youth are developing places them at increased risk of experiencing significant mental health issues. Given the increase in the number of Latino youths living in the US and how little we know about protective and risk factors that might ameliorate or exacerbate the effects of stress on mental health, the four presentations in this symposium provide timely, cutting-edge insight into these processes. Paper 1 describes results from a study with Mexican-American children, showing that both parent and child familism ameliorate the effects of stress on children’s symptoms of anxiety, depression, and externalizing. Paper 2 presents findings from a study with low-income Latino adolescents, and shows that bicultural stress, hope, and depressive symptoms are all associated with poor academic outcomes. Paper 3 explores the role of language brokering as a potential stressor for Latino children, demonstrating that more brokering is associated with more anxiety symptoms in these children and was moderated by children’s inhibitory control. Paper 4 describes a mixed-methods study of Latino emancipated migrant farmworkers, examining how the experience of stress and isolation predicts depressive symptoms in these youth. Taken together, this set of innovative studies emphasizes the importance of exploring factors that can help identify which Latino youth may be at higher risk for the onset and development of mental health issues.

Sub Unit

• Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Chairs

• Laura Quinones-Camacho, University of Pittsburgh

• Elizabeth L Davis, University of California, Riverside

Individual Presentations

• Familism from multiple perspectives: Associations between stress, familism, and child adjustment among Mexican-origin families - Presenting Author: Catherine DeCarlo Santiago, Loyola University Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Anna M. Ros, Loyola University Chicago; Non-Presenting Author: Yvita Bustos, Loyola University Chicago

• The Relation Between Bicultural Stress, Depressive Symptoms and Academic Outcomes - Presenting Author: Andrea Romero, University of Arizona

• Language brokering and Latino children's anxiety symptoms: The moderating role of inhibitory control - Presenting Author: Laura Quinones-Camacho, University of Pittsburgh; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth L Davis, University of California, Riverside

• Understanding the Work-Life Experiences and Stressors among Latino Emancipated Migrant Farmworker Youth: A Mixed-Methods Inquiry - Presenting Author: Fiorella L. Carlos Chavez, University of Missouri, Columbia