The Role of Acculturative Stress on Mental Health Symptoms for Immigrant Adolescents: A Longitudinal Investigation

The article ""The Role of Acculturative Stress on Mental Health Symptoms in Immigrant Adolescents: A Longitudinal Investigation"" is a three-wave longitudinal study that investigates the paths of internalizing mental health symptoms in immigrant adolescents (somatic, anxiety and depression). This study had around 332 participants. These were mostly first and second generation adolescent immigrants who lived in cities. The results of growth curve modeling show a reduction in internalizing mental health problems during the high school year. This paper will assess the article in various ways, including the article's background, the consequences of health disparities, and the implications for policy and practice offered.As aforementioned the article "The Role of Acculturative Stress on Mental Health Symptoms for Immigrant Adolescents: A Longitudinal Investigation" is a three-wave longitudinal study that examines routes of internalizing mental health symptoms (somatic, anxiety and depression). About 332 participants took part in this study. These were mainly first and second-generation adolescent immigrants residing in urban. Results from growth curve modeling demonstrate deduction in internalizing problems associated with mental health during high school year's period. This paper will analyze the article in many aspects such as the background of the article, implications of health inequities and implications for policy and practice presented.
Background
As aforementioned the article "The Role of Acculturative Stress on Mental Health Symptoms for Immigrant Adolescents: A Longitudinal Investigation" examines routes of internalizing mental health symptoms (somatic, anxiety and depression). It is clear from the abstract of the article that this issue is not simple. Adolescents in the United States one out of four belongs to an immigrant family. Additionally immigrant in many urban centers such as Miami, Los Angeles, and New York City constitute over 50% of the student in public schools. These youths experience what is usually referred to "accumulative stress" in addition to living in neighborhoods characterized by poverty and attending schools with lack of essential resources. The accumulative stress has been found to increase the risk of a variety of symptoms associated with mental health such as increased anger level, alienation, and depression (Sirin, Ryce, Gupta, and Rogers, 2012).
The article seek to answer the following questions: 1) Are there generation and gender status variation in internalizing the outcomes of mental health and accumulative stress during 12th, 11th and 10th grades for immigrant youths residing in urban? 2) What is the change of pattern over time for symptoms associated with mental health (that is depressed/withdrawn, depressed/anxiety and somatic symptoms)? 3) After limiting generational and gender variations at the intercepts, do accumulative stress changes over time predict the changes in the outcomes of the mental health over time?
The problems associated with mental health in adolescent are usually evaluated in terms of internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Potochnick and Perreira, 2010). Internalizing symptoms eludes the internal stress that adolescents undergo such as somatic, anxiety and depression symptoms. Externalizing symptoms elude overt behaviors as delinquent and aggression behaviors displayed by an adolescent that usually results in conflict with others. Even though externalizing symptoms has been widely studied, little work has been done on internalizing symptoms.
The article examines the role of generation and gender status in addition to exploring the impact of accumulative stress and developmental trajectories associated with internalizing symptoms. Research demonstrates that gender and the group level of differences for immigrant generation are the likely moderating elements in the advancement of internalizing problems. The adolescent female is more likely to report on internalizing problems as compared to the female peers. Research demonstrates that girls reported the highest cases of internalizing problems such as somatic, anxiety, psychological withdrawal, and depression symptoms. However, the boys compared to the girls have a higher probability to score in the clinical range for internalizing problems (Hovey and King, 2011).
The collection of evidence on the generational variations in the psychological outcomes of immigrant has been mainly grounded on the study conducted with adults instead of the young people or the results grounded on epidemiological review with a solitary purpose of estimation, as opposed to longitudinal. Strikingly few reviews have utilized a longitudinal plan to look at the part of generational and gender status in connection to acculturative stress amid youthfulness, a period when the stress confronted by this adolescent might be especially remarkable (Finch, Kolody and Vega, 2010).
To answer the first question, repeated ANOVA measures were done to give an elaborate descriptive understanding of generational and gender differences variations in study variables between the three waves. The means and standard deviation by generation and gender status of the outcomes were determined. The results showed that the first generation of immigrant youths had a higher cumulative stress as compared to the second generation. There was no variation in accumulative stress based on gender and the interaction between generational and gender status was not significant.
Repeated ANOVA measures were additionally performed to determine generational and gender status variations in outcomes of internal mental health. Girls reported greater depressed/anxiety symptoms, somatic symptoms, and depressed/withdrawn symptoms than boys. The first generation of immigrants also reported greater depressed/withdrawn symptoms.
To study the behavior over time in depressed/withdrawn, somatic and depressed/anxious symptoms, unconditional growth models was developed. The result showed that self-reported depressed/withdrawn symptoms of adolescence reduced by an average of 0.06 units annually.
The unconditional model was additionally used to answer question three. The results suggest that there is no change in accumulative stress over time predicts the changes in the outcomes of the mental health over time.
Implications of Health Inequities
The impacts of generation on symptoms related to mental health have demonstrated a conflicting outcome. According to some findings, the first-generation of immigrants have a higher risk of developing depressive and anxiety disorders compared to their peers born in the United States. For example, women and men who came to the U.S. when they were still very young have increased the risk for depressive and anxiety disorders during adolescence and childhood than women and men born in the United States. On the other hand, "Immigrant paradox" a scenario where immigrants of the second generation far worse compared to those of the first generation, has been supported in numerous literature. Research shows that the second-generation immigrant Latinos have the highest rate of mental problems such as psychiatric disorders compared to the first-generation of immigrant Latinos (Gonzales, Suárez and Dedios, 2013).
Implications for Policy and Practice
There policies that have been established to solve health disparities among immigrant Latinos. The policies aim to provide better health care for this special group. As result, problems that are usually associated with mental health have significantly reduced.
States in the U.S. have policies that increase the problems experienced by immigrants. Many immigrants Latinos experience increased stress level because of restriction policies on their status and reduced motivations. Many questions still remain unanswered about the mental and emotional health of these immigrants. Some of the factors that negatively affects the well-being and health of the immigrants have been found to trauma, stress accumulation, anxiety and perceptions, and experiences of rejection (Gonzales, Suárez and Dedios, 2013). Immigration status among undocumented immigrants creates additional stress associated with fear and limited access to resources.
Conclusion and Future Research Recommendations
The main objective of the article was to examine routes of internalizing mental health symptoms (somatic, anxiety and depression). Overall, this objective has been achieved. The author employed appropriate methodology to collect and analyze data.
Given the expanded numbers and progressively vulnerable status of immigrant youths reside in urban, and in spite of the many calls for more research into the lives of these adolescents, we know almost no, about what adds to the formative direction of disguising emotional well-being side effects among these individuals. This article review is an endeavor to distinguish key statistic and mental components that expand on the discoveries of research scattered crosswise over different controls. Given the constrained access to quality emotional well-being, administer to foreigner urban populaces, the ramifications of acculturative weight on mental side effects posture genuine dangers to solid improvement for urban outsider youth.
The future research should focus on the measurement and evaluation of the progress aimed to at solving depression and anxiety among immigrant Latino youth.



References
Finch, B. K., Kolody, B., & Vega, W. A. (2010). Perceived discrimination and depression among Mexican-origin adults in California. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 295-313.
Gonzales, R. G., Suárez-Orozco, C., & Dedios-Sanguineti, M. C. (2013). No place to belong: Contextualizing concepts of mental health among undocumented immigrant youth in the United States. American behavioral scientist, 57(8), 1174-1199.
Hovey, J. D., & King, C. A. (2011). Acculturative stress, depression, and suicidal ideation among immigrant and second-generation Latino adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 35(9), 1183-1192.
Potochnick, S. R., & Perreira, K. M. (2010). Depression and anxiety among first-generation immigrant Latino youth: key correlates and implications for future research. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 198(7), 470.
Sirin, S. R., Ryce, P., Gupta, T., & Rogers-Sirin, L. (2012). The Role of Acculturative
Stress on Mental Health Symptoms for Immigrant Adolescents: A Longitudinal Investigation.
Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0028398