Alcohol use severity and depressive symptoms among late adolescent Hispanics: Testing associations of acculturation and enculturation in a bicultural transaction model

Abstract

Research has indicated that Hispanics have high rates of heavy drinking and depressive symptoms during late adolescence. The purpose of this study was to test a bicultural transaction model composed of two enthnocultural orientations (acculturation and enculturation); and stressful cultural transactions with both the U.S. culture (perceived ethnic discrimination) and Hispanic culture (perceived intragroup marginalization) to predict alcohol use severity and depressive symptoms among a sample of 129 (men = 39, women = 90) late adolescent Hispanics (ages 18 to 21) enrolled in college. Results from a path analysis indicated that the model accounted for 18.2% of the variance in alcohol use severity and 24.3% of the variance in depressive symptoms. None of the acculturation or enculturation domains had statistically significant direct effects with alcohol use severity or depressive symptoms. However, higher reports of ethnic discrimination were associated with higher reports of alcohol use severity and depressive symptoms. Similarly, higher reports of intragroup marginalization were associated with higher depressive symptoms. Further, both ethnic discrimination and intragroup marginalization functioned as mediators of multiple domains of acculturation and enculturation. These findings highlight the need to consider the indirect effects of enthnocultural orientations in relation to health-related outcomes.

Perceived Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Mental Health: a Review and Future Directions for Social Epidemiology

“…While the Everyday Discrimination Scale was developed for use in African Americans and later adapted for other groups, there are some scales designed for specific groups including: (1) Perceived Discrimination subscale of the Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students [21]; (2) Bicultural Stress Scale among recently immigrated adolescents [22]; (3) the Social, Attitudinal, Familial, and Environmental Acculturation Stress Scale and Intragroup Marginalization Inventory-Family Scale [23]; and (4) the Asian American Racism-Related Stress Inventory [24,25]. Some studies utilized scales to address specific types of harassment in addition to race-based, such as weight-based, SES-based, and sexuality-based [26,27].…”

Social Capital as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Perceived Discrimination and Alcohol and Cannabis Use Among Immigrant and Non-immigrant Adolescents in Israel

“…Immigrant groups showed lower levels of parental monitoring and peer support than non-immigrants and FSU adolescents showed lower levels of teacher support. Immigration places multiple stressors on a family ( Conger et al, 2010 ; Cano et al, 2015a ). Families need to cope with financial and occupational challenges ( Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn, 2000 ), a loss of family and social networks, and the need to learn a new language, culture and norms ( Torres et al, 2012 ).…”

Immigration Stress and Alcohol Use Severity Among Recently Immigrated Hispanic Adults: Examining Moderating Effects of Gender, Immigration Status, and Social Support

“…Although the proposed link between cultural stress and alcohol use has been examined more extensively among adolescents (see review by Cano, Schwartz et al, 2015), empirical studies with adult Hispanics also indicate that cultural stressors such as acculturation stress (Ehlers, Gilder, Criado, & Caetano, 2009;Lee et al, 2013) and ethnic discrimination (Cano, de Dios et al, 2015) are associated with higher levels of alcohol use.…”