South East Asian (SEA) immigrants in the United States face significant psychological distress due to their unique psychosocial stressors associated with their pre-migration history. Unlike Chinese immigrants from East Asia who voluntarily came to the United States, South East Asian (SEA) immigrants arrived in the United States as refugees and political immigrants to escape persecution, structural and physical violence or to flee a war-torn country. Studies have found that exposure to trauma have lingering effects on mental health including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety, which may, in part, explain the high rates of mental health disorder among SEA immigrants. Post-migration contextual factors such as racial/ethnic background, discrimination and neighborhood environment, are critical in shaping long-term mental health outcomes among immigrants. The combined effects pre-migration traumatic experiences and post-migration structural violence may also impact the mental health outcomes of SEA immigrant children, including behavioral risk taking, social dysfunction, and impairment in interpersonal relationships. This proposed study will examine 43 Chinese immigrant parents and 60 SEA immigrant parents to compare the effect of parents' pre-migration traumatic experience and post-migration social violence exposure on parents' psychological adjustment and how this may influence parent-child relations and subsequently impact the mental health status and delinquency among their youth. In addition, we will assess the potential moderator effect of ethnic identity and social capital on the relation of parents' immigration experience and parents' psychological adjustment, as well as on the relation of parents' psychological adjustment and parent-child relations.
In Aim 1 we will assess and compare the effect of pre-migration traumatic experiences and post-migration structural violence exposure on the psychological adjustment of SEA and Chinese immigrants.
In Aim 2 we will examine and compare the influence of psychological adjustment on parent-child relations.
In Aim 3 we will evaluate and compare the impact of parent-child relations youth outcomes. And in Aim 4 we will assess the moderator effects of ethnic identity and social capital on the relationship of parents' immigration experience and parents' psychological adjustment, as well as on the relationship of parents' psychological adjustment and on parent-child relations and child outcomes among SEA immigrants and Chinese immigrants. The findings from this study will be used to develop interventions to reduce the effects of structural violence on SEA immigrant communities and extend and incorporate these interventions to address other racial/ethnic minority populations.
| Matthews, Phoenix Alicia; Blok, Amanda C; Lee, Joseph G L et al. (2018) SBM recommends policy support to reduce smoking disparities for sexual and gender minorities. Transl Behav Med 8:692-695 |
