Torres Jacqueline M, Lee Anne, González Hector M, Garcia Lorena, Haan Mary N
University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley, 3333 California Street, Suite 465, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA.
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2016 Jul;160:111-9. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.018. Epub 2016 Apr 20.
Recent scholarship suggests a significant association between cross-border ties, or ties maintained with family and friends in countries and communities of origin, and the mental health of immigrants and their descendants. To date, this research has been exclusively cross-sectional, precluding conclusions about a causal association between cross-border ties and mental health outcomes. In the present study we undertake a longitudinal analysis of the relationship between cross-border ties and depression measured over a ten-year period for a sample of immigrant and U.S.-born Latinos. Data are from the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging (1998-2008), a population-based, prospective study of Latin American-origin adults 60 years and older. We find that cross-border ties reported at baseline were significantly associated with depression in subsequent study waves, even after controlling for the presence of depression at baseline, albeit with substantial differences by gender and nativity. Specifically, communication with family and friends in Latin America and travel to Latin America at baseline were each significantly associated with greater odds of depression for immigrant women, but with lower odds of depression for U.S.-born Latina women over the study period. Travel to Latin America at baseline was significantly associated with lower odds of depression for Latino men across the study. Across all models we control for depressive symptomatology at baseline to account for the reciprocal nature of depressive symptoms and engagement with social ties, including cross-border ties. Our findings suggest that cross-border ties may represent a unique source of both resilience and risk for the long-term mental health of immigrant Latinos and their descendants.
近期的学术研究表明，跨境联系，即与原籍国和社区的家人及朋友保持的联系，与移民及其后代的心理健康之间存在显著关联。迄今为止，这项研究均为横断面研究，无法得出跨境联系与心理健康结果之间存在因果关系的结论。在本研究中，我们对移民和美国出生的拉丁裔样本在十年期间测量的跨境联系与抑郁之间的关系进行了纵向分析。数据来自萨克拉门托地区拉丁裔老龄化研究（1998 - 2008年），这是一项基于人群的对60岁及以上拉丁裔成年人的前瞻性研究。我们发现，即使在控制了基线时的抑郁情况后，基线时报告的跨境联系在后续研究阶段与抑郁仍显著相关，尽管在性别和出生地方面存在很大差异。具体而言，在研究期间，拉丁裔移民女性与拉丁美洲的家人和朋友的交流以及基线时前往拉丁美洲的旅行，均与抑郁几率增加显著相关，但美国出生的拉丁裔女性的抑郁几率较低。在整个研究中，基线时前往拉丁美洲的旅行与拉丁裔男性的抑郁几率较低显著相关。在所有模型中，我们控制了基线时的抑郁症状，以解释抑郁症状与包括跨境联系在内的社会联系参与之间的相互关系。我们的研究结果表明，跨境联系可能是移民拉丁裔及其后代长期心理健康的复原力和风险的独特来源。
