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Principal Investigator: JESSICA R GOODKIND
Organization: UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $1,141,114
Funding agency: National Institute of Mental Health
PROJECT SUMMARY
The goal of this study is to test a multilevel approach to reduce adverse consequences of the COVID-19
pandemic with disparate impacts on Latinx and Black immigrants and refugees by observing and implementing
three nested levels of intervention: 1) an efficacious 6-month peer advocacy and mutual learning model
(Refugee and Immigrant Well-being Project, RIWP); 2) engagement with community-based organizations
(CBOs); and 3) structural policy changes expected to be enacted in response to the pandemic, such as a state
disaster relief proposal for mixed status Latinx families and expanded statewide health insurance coverage.
This community-based participatory research (CBPR) study builds on a long-standing collaboration with five
community-based organizations (CBOs) that focus on mental health, education, legal issues, and system
change efforts to improve the well-being of Latinx immigrants and African refugees. By including 240 Latinx
immigrants and 60 African refugees recruited from CBO partners who are randomly assigned to treatment-as-
usual CBO involvement or the RIWP intervention and a random sample comparison group of 300 Latinx
immigrants, this mixed methods longitudinal waitlist control group design study with seven time points over 36
months will test the effectiveness of the RIWP intervention and engagement with CBOs to reduce
psychological distress, daily stressors, and economic precarity and increase protective factors (social support,
critical awareness of/access to resources, English proficiency, cultural connectedness, and mental health
service use). This study will also test the ability of the RIWP intervention and engagement with CBOs to
increase access to the direct benefits of structural interventions (local/state relief-related policies) for Latinx
and Black immigrants and refugees. Mechanisms of intervention effectiveness will be explored by testing
mediating relationships between primary outcomes and protective factors. We will also track local/state policy
changes and obtain preliminary quantitative estimates of effects of these structural interventions on
psychological distress, stressors, and economic precarity using propensity score matching. Qualitative
interview data from a purposive subsample of participants and CBO staff will enable additional exploration of
mechanisms of change, the effects of policy interventions on individuals, how CBOs contribute to enacting
policies and helping people benefit from them, and the context of RIWP implementation at each site. This
research is innovative and significant because it employs cutting-edge research design and intervention
strategies to advance the science of multilevel mental health interventions that aim to understand and address
underlying structural inequities and resulting mental health disparities that have been highlighted and
exacerbated by the pandemic. Thus, this study will contribute not only to reducing the disparate adverse
mental health, behavioral, and socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic but also to our ability
to eliminate mental health disparities among Latinx and Black populations.
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