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Principal Investigator: ESTHER J CALZADA
Organization: GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $811,056
Funding agency: National Institute of Mental Health
Abstract
In 2021, the US Surgeon General issued an advisory warning of a youth mental health crisis, exacerbated
by the COVID-19 pandemic. Latinx youth, a group marginalized by race, ethnicity, class, and culture, have
exceedingly high rates of internalizing symptoms such as depression and anxiety. Ecosocial theory posits that
historical, societal, and ecological conditions over the life course have critical impacts on later mental health.
This research will examine how distal and proximal societal stressors influence mental health trajectories for a
diverse sample of US Latinx youth followed from early childhood into young adulthood. Distal societal
stressors, such as the pandemic, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and neighborhood ethnic marginalization, may
increase Latinx youth’s internalizing symptoms directly and indirectly through proximal societal stressors, such
as families’ COVID-related economic, health, and social problems and individuals’ perceptions of immigrant
threats and ethnic discrimination. These kinds of societal stressors also may have direct and indirect effects on
increased internalizing symptoms through family stress processes, including maternal depression and harsh
parenting. The nature of youth’s exposure to these stressors (for how long, when in history and development)
and the presence of protective adaptive factors (e.g., parents’ cultural socialization; youth self-regulation) can
moderate stressor impacts on internalizing symptoms. This research will leverage advances in Integrated Data
Analysis (IDA) to pool data from five longitudinal Latinx cohort studies to obtain a single, aggregated data set
with 2,515 Latinx mother-youth dyads following youth from age 2 to 22 (2010-26). IDA increases statistical
power, sample heterogeneity and generalizability, and measurement breadth and depth in ways not possible
with a single data set. The application will support 1) collecting cross-sectional data for 500 Latinx individuals
to establish standard measurement scaling across the five studies; 2) integrating data across all five studies;
and 3) extracting data from Twitter and the US Census to assess anti-immigrant rhetoric and neighborhood
factors, respectively. Analyses will utilize a general latent variable modeling framework that includes multilevel
modeling, structural equation modeling, item response modeling, and finite mixture modeling. We hypothesize
a cascade of effects from distal societal stressors to increased internalizing symptoms through greater
proximal societal stressors and increased family stress processes. We expect that pathways linking societal
stressors to youth’s internalizing symptoms will vary depending upon the presence of adaptive factors, the
developmental timing and cumulative effects of youth experiences, and sociodemographic characteristics (e.g.,
youth biological sex, family national origin). This study offers an unparalleled opportunity to understand Latinx
mental health in relationship to multi-level stressors, adaptive factors, and sensitive periods of development. As
Latinx youth comprise more than one-in-four US youth, findings from this research will help guide new
preventive interventions and refine existing ones for a large and growing segment of the US population.
Terms: <0-11 years old><Address><Affect><Age><Aggregated Data><Anxiety><COVID crisis><COVID epidemic><COVID pandemic><COVID-19><COVID-19 crisis><COVID-19 epidemic><COVID-19 era><COVID-19 global health crisis><COVID-19 global pandemic><COVID-19 health crisis><COVID-19 pandemic><COVID-19 period><COVID-19 public health crisis><COVID-19 years><CV-19><Cannot see a future><Cell Communication and Signaling><Cell Signaling><Censuses><Characteristics><Child><Child Rearing><Child Youth><Children (0-21)><Cohort Studies><Concurrent Studies><Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019><Data><Data Aggregation><Data Analyses><Data Analysis><Data Pooling><Data Set><Depressed mood><Development><Distal><Early identification><Economics><Equation><Ethnic Origin><Ethnicity><Event><Exposure to><Family><Feeling hopeless><Feels there is no future><Goals><Health><Heterogeneity><High School Student><History><Immigrant><Immigration><Individual><Informal Social Control><Intervention><Intervention Strategies><Intracellular Communication and Signaling><Investigators><Knowledge><Latine><Latinx><Latinx group><Latinx individual><Latinx people><Latinx population><Life Cycle><Life Cycle Stages><Light><Link><Long-term cohort study><Longitudinal cohort study><Longterm cohort study><Loss of hope for the future><Measurement><Measures><Mediating><Mental Depression><Mental Health><Mental Hygiene><Mental disorders><Mental health disorders><Modeling><Mothers><NIMH><National Institute of Mental Health><National origin><Nature><Negative about the future><Neighborhoods><No hope for the future><Parenting><Parenting behavior><Parents><Pathway interactions><Perception><Photoradiation><Policies><Population><Preventative intervention><Process><Psychiatric Disease><Psychiatric Disorder><Psychological Health><Race><Races><Recording of previous events><Reporting><Research><Research Personnel><Researchers><SARS-CoV-2 epidemic><SARS-CoV-2 global health crisis><SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic><SARS-CoV-2 pandemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 epidemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 pandemic><Sampling><Secondary School Student><Secondary Student><Self Regulation><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 epidemic><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 pandemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 epidemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic><Shapes><Signal Transduction><Signal Transduction Systems><Signaling><Social Problems><Socialization><Socioeconomically disadvantaged><Strategic Planning><Stress><Surgeon><Survey Instrument><Surveys><Symptoms><Twitter><Youth><Youth 10-21><adult youth><ages><biological sex><biological signal transduction><childrearing><class development><coronavirus disease 2019><coronavirus disease 2019 crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic><coronavirus disease 2019 global health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 global pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 public health crisis><coronavirus disease crisis><coronavirus disease epidemic><coronavirus disease pandemic><coronavirus disease-19><coronavirus disease-19 global pandemic><coronavirus disease-19 pandemic><coronavirus infectious disease-19><cost effective><course development><course material development><data integration><data interpretation><depressed><depressed mother><depression><developmental><discrimination based on ethnicity><early childhood><early experience><economic><ethnic discrimination><ethnic identity><ethnicity-based discrimination><experience><high schoolers><histories><hopelessness><intervention for prevention><interventional strategy><kids><life course><life span><lifespan><marginalization><marginalized group><marginalized individual><marginalized people><marginalized population><maternal depression><mental illness><methods to study multiple-level influences><multi-level analysis><multi-level model><multilevel analysis><multilevel model><multilevel modeling><pandemic><pandemic disease><parent><pathway><prevention intervention><preventional intervention strategy><preventive intervention><psychiatric illness><psychological disorder><racial><racial background><racial origin><response><sadness><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global health crisis><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global pandemic><sex><social><social disturbance><socio-demographics><socio-economic disadvantage><socio-economically disadvantaged><socio-economically underprivileged><sociodemographics><socioeconomic disadvantage><socioeconomically underprivileged><stress buffering><stress management><stressor><theories><young adult><young adulthood><youngster>