Stress, Illness, and the Social Environment: Depressive Symptoms Among First Generation Mandarin Speaking Chinese in Greater Los Angeles

Abstract

Purpose This study documents the indirect effects of social and environmental variables as mediated by immigrant stress and physical health. Methods Using data from a large dual frame sample of first generation mandarin speaking Chinese immigrants in metropolitan Los Angeles counties with the largest groups of Chinese immigrants, this study uses a path analytic approach to trace how predictors are related to depressive symptoms and to measure direct and indirect influences of variables. Results Although bivariate analyses suggested that many predictors were associated with depressive symptoms, multivariate path analysis revealed a more complex structure of mediated associations. In the multivariate path analysis only reports of physical health and immigrant stress were directly related to depressive symptoms (P<.05), while acculturation, time in the U.S., income, U.S. citizenship, and distance of persons on whom one could rely were related to stress (but not to physical health status) and only to depressive symptoms as mediated by stress. Age and educational attainment were related to health status (and to stress as mediated by physical health) and to depressive symptoms as mediated by both health and stress. These variables were also unrelated directly to health status and to depressive symptoms. Associations were evaluated using statistical significance, P<.05. Conclusions This study demonstrates the significance of stress and health as mediators of variables in the larger context of the physical environment and suggests that the mechanisms linking ecological characteristics of immigrants to depressive symptoms may be stress and physical health among immigrants.

A comparative study of domestic decision-making power and social support as predictors of postpartum depressive and physical symptoms between immigrant and native-born women

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Recruiting Migrants for Health Research Through Social Network Sites: An Online Survey Among Chinese Migrants in Australia

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Antibiotic utilisation amongst Australian Chinese migrants: a web-based bilingual health survey

“…In this study, we found that 85% of participants in the postal survey had been residing in Australia for more than 5 years compared with about half of participants in the Web-based survey. Similarly, studies amongst US migrants found samples of longer-stay migrants using a telephone directory list (151). Due to the immigration regulations, new arrival migrants are generally young and well educated.…”

“…Even so, however, that potential change in demographics is unlikely to account for the observed differences between two surveys. A recent study in the United States, using a telephone directory to obtain a sample of Chinese migrants also showed that the sample population of a postal survey was relatively older and they were longer-stay migrants (151).…”

“…Many health studies in migrants and ethnic minorities have adopted purposeful sampling methods to recruit participants in specific premises including clinics, churches, community centres (148,149). In some studies, participants were recruited through a telephone directory by selecting surnames which might indicate the person's ethnic background (150,151).…”