SER Hispano Longitudinal Study

Study Summary

Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. are more likely to experience negative health outcomes the longer they live in the U.S. For example, over time Hispanic immigrants engage in riskier behaviors such as substance abuse, violence, and risky sex, and experience more depressive symptoms. The stress associated with the acculturation process, acculturation stress, and resilience at the individual, family, community, and societal levels appear to play important roles in influencing risks. However, little is known about the causal mechanisms linking acculturation stress, resilience, and health outcomes among Hispanic immigrants. Further, little is known about what precise types of stressors (e.g., occupational stress vs. discrimination) and resilience factors (e.g., individual coping vs. family support) have the most important influence on health trajectories of Hispanic immigrants. The proposed longitudinal study (N = 385) will investigate the effects of acculturation stress and resilience on co-occurring substance abuse, intimate partner violence, HIV risk, and depression (i.e., syndemic conditions) and biological stress among young adult Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. More specifically, the proposed project aims to: 1) test theoretical links between the cumulative impact of acculturation stress and resilience on syndemic conditions and biological stress among recent young adult Hispanic immigrants over a two-year period, and 2) identify the specific types of acculturation stressors and resilience factors at the individual, family, community, and societal levels that are most important in predicting syndemic conditions and biological stress among this population over time. Young adult low-income Hispanic immigrant men and women within the first 10 years of immigration will be followed for two years. Biopsychosocial data will be collected from participants at baseline, and then 6 months (FU1), 12 months (FU2), 18 months (FU3), and 24 months later (FU4). Culturally specific m

Primary Outcome

The AUDIT (Babor et. al., 2001) measure has 10 items that assess frequency of drinking and alcohol use disorder symptoms. The DAST (Skinner, 1982) measure, has 10 items that measure drug abuse symptoms. The Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (Strauss \& Douglas, 2004) has 24 items that assess conflict between partners and intimate partner violence. The Partner Table \& STI History (Gonzalez-Guarda et. al., 2011) has 25 items that assess current sexual practices and risk for sexually transmitted infe

Interventions

• OTHER Observational