The Effects of Economic and Sociocultural Stressors on the Well-being of Children of Latino Immigrants Living in Poverty.

Publication Date

1-2017

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Children of immigrants, Latino children, Immigration stress, Stress physiology

Abstract

Objective: This article explored whether preschoolers’ physical (body mass index [BMI] and salivary cortisol levels) and psychological (internalizing/externalizing behaviors) well-being were predicted by economic hardship, as has been previously documented, and further, whether parental immigration-related stress and/or acculturation level moderated this relationship in low-income Latino families. Method: The sample for the current study included 71 children of Latino immigrants (M 4.46 years, SD .62). Parents completed questionnaires assessing immigration-related stress, acculturation level, economic hardship, and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Child’s BMI was also calculated from height and weight. Salivary cortisol samples were collected midmorning and midafternoon at home on non-child-care days. Salivary cortisol values were averaged and log transformed. Results: Children’s salivary cortisol was predicted by an interaction between economic hardship and acculturation, with lower cortisol values except when children were protected by both lower acculturation and lower economic hardship. Both internalizing and externalizing behaviors were predicted by an interaction between economic hardship and immigration-related stress, with highest behaviors among children whose parents reported high levels of both economic hardship and immigration-related stress. Conclusions: The effects of economic hardship on the well-being of young children of Latino immigrants may depend on concurrent experiences of sociocultural stress, with detrimental effects emerging for these outcomes only when economic hardship and sociocultural stressors are high.

Copyright Date

1-2017

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the American Psychological Association. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:

Mendoza, M. M., Dmitrieva, J., Perreira, K. M., Hurwich-Reiss, E., & Watamura, S. E. (2017). The effects of economic and sociocultural stressors on the well-being of children of Latino immigrants living in poverty. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 23(1), 15 - 26. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000111

Rights Holder

American Psychological Association

Provenance

Received from CHORUS

Language

English (eng)

Publication Title

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology

Volume

23

Issue

1

First Page

15

Last Page

26

ISSN

1939-0106

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