A Longitudinal Study of Adversity, Stress Processes, and Latinx Health from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

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Abstract The sharp rise in anti-immigrant policy since early 2017, ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and longstanding experiences of Latinx discrimination and marginalization raise serious stress-related public health concerns for today’s Latinx youth, the vast majority of whom are U.S. citizens. Chronic and/or severe exposure to adversity can elevate stress processes in the family (e.g., increased maternal depression) and manifest through youth’s behavioral health (e.g., unhealthy diet), and biology (e.g., flatter diurnal slopes of daily cortisol output). These stress processes can increase mental health and chronic disease risks and limit social mobility for Latinx youth making the consequential transition to adulthood. We propose major expansions to Caminos, an NICHD- funded study collecting 8 time points of data at 6-month lags (2018-2021) for a diverse sample of 547 Latinx adolescents (88% U.S. born) and mothers (80% foreign born) in suburban Atlanta. As in other new settlement areas, Georgia’s Latinx youth and families face a less welcoming immigrant context of reception than occurs in established immigrant areas. The proposed study will add five time points of annual data, extending current measures into the transition to adulthood and assessing hair and salivary cortisol indicating chronic and acute stress, waist circumference, and survey reports of chronic disease risk and social mobility. The 13 time points of data (2018 to 2026) will trace the onset of behaviors from as early as age 11 and occurring before, during, and after the pandemic and during a changing U.S. immigrant political environment. We will use state-of-the- art methods to multiply impute intentionally and unintentionally missing data for a Latinx cohort with high retention in the ongoing study. Guided by family stress models and cultural-developmental theory, cross- lagged path models and latent growth mixture models will test the hypothesis that family, biological, and behavioral health stress processes mediate associations between adversities (e.g., responses to anti- immigrant actions, pandemic-related events, Latinx marginalization) and Latinx youth’s mental health risks (internalizing and externalizing symptoms, substance use), chronic disease risks (e.g., asthma, diabetes), and social mobility (e.g., educational attainment). Using tests of moderated mediation, we will identify community-, family-, and individual-level protective factors that mitigate impacts of adversity and stress on youth outcomes. Sex as a biological variable will be examined as a key modifier. Unique from other national and cohort studies, the proposed research will identify how accumulated adversities rooted in anti-immigrant experiences and the pandemic shape Latinx youth’s health outcomes and social mobility over time. In addition, the proposed study is uniquely situated in a new immigrant area and examines Latinx marginalization within and outside of the residential neighborhood by using geocoded census data on mother activity spaces. Elevating translational impacts, findings will inform programs for Latinx youth who may struggle to recover from pandemic and immigration-related adversities as they prepare for adulthood.