Más que palabras: Understanding the mental health and behavioral consequences of sociodemographic risk and deportation fears in Latinx families.

Abstract

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.examined its association with mental health in this community. We found that observed maternal deportation fears are linked with greater depression for both youth and mothers. However, these associations are only present when the family's exposure to demographic stress is lower. Providers working with this community should assess which stressors loom largest in families' lives (e.g., deportation fears, sociodemographic stressors) and target those in order to address familial mental health.

Introduction to the special issue on the consequences of immigration policies on children, youth, and families who experience migration-related trauma.

“…Arreola et al (2024) take an innovative approach to understanding intergenerational transmission of mental illness among migrant mothers and their youth aged 11–17, using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Focusing on the language that mothers use to describe their fears of deportation, they discovered associations of these words to mothers’ depression and to youth depression rates as well.…”

The Development and Pilot Evaluation of a Family-Based Education to Strengthen Latinx Adolescent Mental Health in the United States: The Familias Activas Experience

“…Some of these negative outcomes may be attributable to unique stressors among this population, such as immigration political rhetoric fueling deportation fears. Research has shown that deportation fears increase the risk for depression in both youth and parents of Latinx families [5]. In addition to unique minority stress influences, prior research suggests disparities in service utilization as an explanation for poorer mental health outcomes among Latinx youth.…”