Psychosocial Adjustment and Substance Use of Cambodian and Vietnamese Immigrant Youth

Abstract

Southeast Asians living in the United States are a unique Asian immigrant population. They are considered one of the "newer" Asian immigrant groups, tend to be less affluent compared with their East and South Asian counterparts, and are steadily growing in number (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000). Unfortunately, few studies exist specifically about Southeast Asian immigrants. The lack of studies, coupled with the community's growing mental health issues, suggests the need for increased research on this population. This study contributes to the literature by examining the extent to which identification with Vietnamese or Cambodian culture, peer relationships, and coping behaviors affect substance use among Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrant youth. A sample of 102 participants, age 12-18 years, completed self-report measures regarding these variables. Overall, results indicate that identification with one's culture of origin and coping behaviors moderate the relationship between deviant peer association and substance use. Results are discussed within a contextual model of problem behavior among Southeast Asian youth.During the past decade, many gains have been made in the area of child and adolescent psychopathology and substance use. However, research has lagged in terms of understanding psychological problems and the diverse pathways to adaptive and maladaptive outcomes for children, adolescents, and families of color. Despite the growing ethnic diversity of the North American population, ethnic representation and ethnicityrelated issues have received relatively little attention in studies of child and adolescent psychopathology and related risk behavior such as substance use. Investigators have based theories of child behavior on data drawn chiefly from European American samples (Mash & Dozois, 2003), leaving largely unexamined the cultural factors that may contribute to these problems or that may work as protective factors that moderate the degree of problem behaviors and risk. Yet, accounting for these cultural factors in developmental models of problem behavior would facilitate accurate interpretation and the application of study findings to clinical practice. This study sought to address this gap in the literature by examining the psychosocial adjustment and substance use associated with one ethnic minority population, Southeast Asian immigrant adolescents in the United States.Vietnamese and Cambodian adolescents (hereafter included in the general terms Southeast Asian adolescents or Southeast Asian youth) are a population of particular interest because they are one of the newer immigrant groups and tend to be less affluent than other Asian groups. The Southeast Asian immigrant population has increased steadily since its earliest influx in 1975, when 133,438 immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos arrived in the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000). That number increased to 534,508 in 1996 and to 567,644 in 2001 (U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, 2002. The context of this populati...

A comparison of Cambodian-American adolescent substance use behavior to national and local norms

“…Even given the parental stressors presented to this specific subgroup (e.g., their parents are a disadvantaged Asian subgroup generally reporting poor mental health; Marshall et al, 2005), we found that Cambodian-American youths reported less use of substances relative to their peers. Perhaps protective factors for substance use similar to those among Cambodian and Cambodian-American youth (e.g., school attachment, family support, positive coping skills) are also evident in these Cambodian-American youth (Lim et al, 2011; Yi et al, 2011). The sample was also collected from an ethnic enclave of Cambodian families, which may have served a protective function given the shared collectivism, cultural norms, and views about substances (e.g., abuse of alcohol and drugs seen as embarrassing) in Asian-American enclaves (Mazumdar et al, 2000), which has explained differences in White and Asian adolescent substance use patterns in other work (Au & Donaldson, 2000).…”

“…In particular, we found that of nearly 500 Cambodian refugee participants, nearly three-quarters reported no drinking behavior in the past month and only 4% met criteria for an alcohol use disorder (D’Amico et al, 2007; Marshall et al, 2005). The research for Cambodian adolescents is also mixed; with some studies citing elevated risk (e.g., Lee et al, 2008; 2010) and others suggesting use may be no more problematic among this group than among others (Lim et al, 2011). …”

“…Studies combine substances in analyses and aggregate across youths from other Southeast Asian countries and across gender. These analytic strategies may obscur important differences between groups or substances (e.g., Lee et al, 2008; Lee et al, 2010; Lim et al 2011). For example, studies report high cigarette, marijuana, and alcohol prevalence for Southeast Asian youth, but these studies combine several ethnic groups into a heterogenous category (e.g., Cambodian, Mien, Lao) and employ a snowball sampling recruitment strategy in which heavy using participants recruit others within heavy drug-using environments, potentially biasing the sample (Lee & Kirkpatrick, 2005; Lipperman-Kreda & Lee, 2011).…”

Mental Health Problems among Korean American Adolescents

“…Although the Korean American population is rapidly increasing, little is known about the mental health problems of Korean American adolescents (Lai, 2005;Lim, Stormshak, & Falkenstein, 2011;Takeuchi, Hong, Gile, & Alegría, 2007).…”

The Impact of Intergenerational Cultural Dissonance on Alcohol Use Among Vietnamese and Cambodian Adolescents in the United States

“…Despite a great deal of attention to underage drinking generally, Asian adolescent alcohol use is understudied, representing a significant gap in the literature [3-4]. Asians are the fastest growing racial population in the U.S. [5], and, although they have a lower prevalence of alcohol use than other groups (15.2% of Asians aged 12-20 reported past 30-day alcohol use, compared to 17.8% for Blacks, 20.6% for Hispanics, and 25.8% for Whites) [6], the prevalence of alcohol use problems may be increasing [7].…”