Drinking and Driving among Recent Latino Immigrants: The Impact of Neighborhoods and Social Support

Abstract

Latinos are disproportionately impacted by drinking and driving arrests and alcohol-related fatal crashes. Why, and how, these disparities occur remains unclear. The neighborhood environments that recent Latino immigrants encounter in their host communities can potentially influence health behaviors over time, including the propensity to engage in drinking and driving. This cross-sectional study utilizes a sample of 467 documented and undocumented adult recent Latino immigrants in the United States to answer the following research questions: (a) How do neighborhood-level factors, combined with social support, impact drinking and driving risk behaviors?; and (b) Does acculturative stress moderate the effects of those associations? Results indicate neighborhood-level factors (informal social control and social capital) have protective effects against drinking and driving risk behaviors via the mediating mechanism of social support. Acculturative stress moderated associations between neighborhood informal social control and social support, whereby the protective effects of informal social control on social support were not present for those immigrants with higher levels of acculturative stress. Our findings contribute to the limited knowledge of drinking and driving among Latino immigrants early in the immigration process and suggest that, in the process of developing prevention programs tailored to Latino immigrants, greater attention must be paid to neighborhood-level factors.

Pre- and Post-Immigration Correlates of Alcohol Misuse among Young Adult Recent Latino Immigrants: An Ecodevelopmental Approach

“…Specifically, recent Latino immigrants reporting lower levels of social support were more likely to report FHSUP+ and post-immigration alcohol misuse. Results from the present study support previous evidence suggesting the higher levels of social support among recent Latino immigrants can assist in ameliorating alcohol-use related risk behaviors such as drinking and driving in this population [30]. These findings support the notion that future programs seeking to prevent alcohol misuse among Latino immigrants should incorporate strategies targeting interpersonal level factors aimed at increasing social support, including civic participation and reciprocity among residents.…”

“…Indeed, theorists have postulated that post-immigration alcohol misuse among immigrants is both directly and indirectly associated with the pre-immigration context, including the (a) social, economic, and political environment of the country of origin; (b) context of departure; and (c) reason for immigration [9]. In addition, post-immigration cultural stressors—including the social, economic, and political environment of the receiving society/community and experiences of discrimination and other acculturative stressors—can impact an immigrant’s susceptibility to alcohol misuse [9,30].…”

Evidencing Protective and Risk Factors for Harmful Alcohol Drinking in Adolescence: A Prospective Analysis of Sport-Participation and Scholastic-Achievement in Older Adolescents from Croatia

“…Apart from being a serious health-threatening behavior, alcohol is directly and indirectly connected to numerous negative social consequences, such as risky sexual behavior, family violence, physical abuse, and traffic accidents [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Drinking alcohol is a particularly important problem in adolescence.…”

Identifying Pattern of Relationships between Attachment Styles, Life Satisfaction and Perfectionism in University Students

“…It can be noted that the number of girls was lower than boys in this study. Studies have shown that attachment to parents is more in girls than boys (24), also girls act stronger than boys in pursuit of their friendship with girls, therefore they have other supportive sources in addition to their parents (such as friends) (25). Accordingly, it can be said that the number of individuals with secure attachment was likely lower than those with anxiety and avoidance attachment in this study.…”