Acculturation to the culture of the host society as well as to one's heritage culture have been shown to impact immigrants' adjustment during the years following resettlement. While acculturation has been identified as an important factor in adjustment of Vietnamese immigrants (Birman and Tran in Am J Orthopsychiatr 78(1):109-120. doi: 10.1037/0002-9432.78.1.109 , 2008), no clear pattern of findings has emerged and too few studies have employed an ecological approach. The purpose of this paper is to contextualize the study of acculturation and adjustment by taking an ecological approach to exploring these relationships across several life domains, using a bilinear scale, and examining mediators of these relationships for adult Vietnamese refugees (N = 203) in the United States. We call this approach the Ecological Acculturation Framework (EAF). Results of a structural equation model (SEM) showed that job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between American acculturation and psychological distress, demonstrating that this relationship was specific to an occupational domain. However, while Vietnamese acculturation predicted co-ethnic social support satisfaction, it did not predict reduced psychological distress. Implications for a life domains approach, including domain specificity, are discussed.

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Premigration trauma and postmigration stressors put refugees at high risk for mental health concerns, including substance use. However, there is limited systematic research on substance use in refugee communities exists. We conducted exploratory qualitative research to examine Bhutanese and Iraqi refugee perspectives related to the use of recreational substances after resettlement in the United States. Data were collected through separate focus groups with 28 Bhutanese and 22 Iraqi adult men. Focus groups were facilitated by an experienced clinician with an in-person interpreter, audiorecorded, and transcribed. Transcripts were checked for accurate translation and then analyzed using a conventional content analysis approach. Findings revealed similarities and differences between the two refugee groups with regard to recognizing excessive use, triggers for use, and preferred modes of outreach and intervention. Findings also revealed postmigration changes in substance use behaviors stemming from issues related to access, cost, and perceived legal ramifications.

Torture has been documented to occur in 81 countries (Amnesty International, 2008) resulting in 2–15 million torture survivors worldwide (Physicians for Human Rights, 2010). The problems torture survivors experience are best understood from an ecological perspective (i.e., understanding human behavior as contextual), but the solutions offered are rarely ecological in nature. Rather, most empirical literature on interventions for torture survivors discuss individually focused interventions only. This article is a critical review of the literature on interventions for immigrant survivors of politically sanctioned torture from an ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). A systematic literature review was conducted. The review included 22 articles, covering 13 interventions. Each article was coded to capture ecological intervention components. All interventions targeted individual-level change. Eleven interventions targeted additional ecological-levels surrounding survivors in the microsystem, macrosystem, and/or chronosystem levels of ecology. Interventions targeted several life domains, such as the legal, social, and occupational domains. Interventions included cultural adaptations such as using interpreters and designing interventions to be more congruent with the survivors’ cultures. The current body of literature on empirically tested interventions for torture survivors is limited, with few interventionists testing their work empirically and fewer sufficiently addressing the ecological needs of torture survivors. More intervention development is needed to address the ecological needs of survivors and make interventions that are multilevel, community-based, and culturally situated (Trickett, 2009). Future research should aim to involve torture survivors through community-based participatory research and seek suggestions for research from within the survivor community, so that interventions can be situated within their cultural context.