Stress negatively impacts health outcomes across all racial and ethnic groups, but the health disparities experienced by Latino immigrants in nontraditional migration cities are exacerbated by undeveloped infrastructure and weak social support networks. Immigrants in new migration cities can be difficult to engage in health interventions and are therefore underrepresented in the very research where their inclusion is most crucial. To effectively engage Latino immigrants, a team of academic and community researchers collaborated on a community-based participatory research project to design and implement a stress and coping intervention. Top stressors reported were family, children, and work, but health was most commonly identified as the primary stressor. Participants overwhelmingly chose physical activity goals for stress reduction. Pre- to post- intervention results revealed significant improvements in social support and stress management. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of a peer-led, community-partnered approach to implementing a stress intervention with Latino immigrants in a nontraditional migration city.
Colleges and universities are increasingly concerned about respect for diversity and tolerance of individual differences on their campuses. Nevertheless, no comprehensive measure of peer victimization has been developed and validated for use with college student populations. The Peer Victimization in College Survey (PVIC) is the first such measure. Study 1 (N ϭ 733) reports how PVIC items were empirically derived to ensure construct coverage. Study 2 (N ϭ 100) reports how intuitive PVIC subscales were established to distinguish between subtypes of college peer victimization. Study 3 (N ϭ 520) provides evidence of convergent, discriminant, and construct validity for the PVIC, including its relations to risk factors and to outcomes such as depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, and college sense of belonging. Study 4 (N ϭ 633) validates several PVIC scaling methods and provides evidence of incremental validity of the measure over current (unvalidated) measures. The PVIC can assess subtypes of peer victimization on college campuses, evaluate the effectiveness of campus intervention efforts, and test hypotheses about the causes and effects of peer victimization.
Public Significance StatementThis study introduces the first validated measure of peer-on-peer victimization among college students, the Peer Victimization in College (PVIC) Survey. Derived from college students' own personal experiences, the study identifies 10 broad types of peer victimization that occur on college campuses. The PVIC can be used both by researchers who study bullying and by college officials who want to understand peer victimization or the effectiveness of interventions on their campuses.
Despite the increasing acceptability of promotores (community health workers) delivering interventions, Latino immigrants are still less likely to serve as partners in intervention research. Using a community-based participatory research approach, which equitably involves community members throughout the research process, we partnered with an established community research team, Latinos Unidos por la Salud (Latinos United for Health; LU-Salud). LU-Salud is composed of 17 Latino immigrants (coresearchers), and together we developed and implemented an intervention to reduce stress and increase coping. In this article, we describe the process our team used, including the codesign of the intervention content, sociocultural adaptations for Latino immigrants, and coresearchers' perspectives about the intervention. Future research can use the LU-Salud process as a potential model to engage hard-to-reach populations as partners in intervention research.
What is the significance of this article for the general public?Our community research team of Latino immigrant coresearchers and academic researchers developed and implemented an intervention to reduce stress and increase coping. To provide a model to engage hard-to-reach populations as partners in intervention research, we describe the codesign of the intervention content, sociocultural adaptations for Latino immigrants, and coresearchers' perspectives about the intervention.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.