Examining the Multidimensional Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic Stressors Within a Sample of Low-Income Latino/a/x Families

• In Event: Family Processes Involving Parental Mental Health During COVID-19: Associations with Child Well-being

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color, exacerbating pre-existing health disparities (Tai et al., 2020). This is apparent within the low-income Latino/a/x community, which was particularly hard hit by the pandemic, experiencing increased stressors at nearly every level -- physical, financial, psychological, and political. Indeed, the pandemic has been characterized as a cascading traumatic event, containing so many disruptions (Silver et al., 2020).

Although emerging work documents the mental health consequences of the pandemic for Latino/a/x youth, the contributions of various pandemic-related stresses on mental health need to be disentangled. Moreover, Latino/a/x families are typically tight-knit and close (consistent with values of familism), suggesting that adopting a family-wide approach to studying the impact of pandemic stressors might further illuminate relevant psychological processes. The current investigation endeavors to enhance our understanding of the association between specific pandemic-related stressors and mental health in Latino/a/x youth and mothers (Aim 1) to identify which aspects of the pandemic were most strongly associated with mental health difficulties. Second, we examine the associations between mothers’ and youth’s pandemic stressors in order to examine the ways in which stressors experienced by one member of a family are associated with stressors experienced by another member of a family (Aim 2).

We conducted a longitudinal follow-up (approximately 1 year later) of a sample of N = 80 low-income Latino/a/x mothers and youth randomly selected from a larger community intervention study to participate in this pandemic follow-up study. Youth were 12.08 years old (SDage= 2.01) at pre-pandemic baseline and 13.40 years (SDage= 1.93 years) during the pandemic. Mothers and youth completed assessments of psychopathology at baseline and during the pandemic. They completed a novel COVID Pandemic Impact Scale (adapted from the NIH ECHO COVID-19 Questionnaire [Blackwell et al., 2018] and ABCD COVID-19 Questionnaire [Nandy et al., 2021]), which measured six areas of impact for youth (social relationships, education, and four health domains) and seven for mothers (childcare disruption, finances, social relationships, and four health domains).

All analyses controlled for pre-pandemic mental health when predicting mental health during the pandemic. For Aim 1, the impact of the pandemic on mothers’ finances most strongly predicted mothers’ general mental health difficulties (depression/anxiety symptoms), whereas the presence of factors that increased risk for greater severity of COVID illness increased risk for PTSD symptoms regarding COVID. In contrast, for youth, the impact of the pandemic on general health (reduced exercise, worsened diet) and educational experiences were most strongly associated with worsened mental health. For Aim 2, our findings reveal interesting cross-relationship associations of pandemic stressors – for instance, when mothers have had more impact from having contracted COVID on their health, their children report greater social impact of the pandemic but less educational impact[KK1] .

We discuss our findings in terms of the bioecological model of human development, underscoring the importance of broader contextual and relational factors in promoting strong mental health and family relationships. We also discuss the relevance of these findings for prevention.

Authors

• Lyric Noelle Russo, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Kelly Kazmierski

• Jose Arreola, University of California - Irvine

• Jackelyne Garcia, San Diego State University

• Crystal Torres

• Nancy Guerra, UCI Irvine

• Jessica L Borelli, University of California - Irvine