Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2023 Jun;69(4):853-864. doi: 10.1177/00207640221140285. Epub 2022 Dec 26.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought disparities in mental and physical health faced by ethnic minorities to the forefront. In the U.S., Hispanic/Latino communities are plagued by elevated rates of psychiatric conditions and trauma. Exacerbating this burden, common discourse often implicates Hispanic/Latino ethnicity as a causal factor, despite clear evidence of systemic causes, including lack of access to resources, and discrimination.
To parse apart Hispanic/Latino ethnicity from determinants of wellbeing (such as trauma, financial status, and loneliness), we examined mental and physical health during COVID-19 via an online, anonymous survey available in both English and Spanish.
We examined wellbeing across three participant groups, including two groups of Hispanic/Latino adults with varying degrees of 'belonging' to the dominant culture in their country of residence: Hispanic/Latino individuals living in Spanish-speaking and/or Central or Latin American countries (Group 1), Hispanic/Latino individuals living in the U.S. (Group 2), and non-Hispanic/Latino individuals living in the U.S. (Group 3).
Results demonstrated there were significant differences between groups in specific aspects of wellbeing. Most importantly, results showed Hispanic/Latino ethnicity does not significantly predict psychosocial wellbeing or psychosis risk, and identified several predictors of these outcomes, including U.S. residence, trauma, loneliness, and age.
Our results demonstrate that Hispanic/Latino ethnicity itself is not a causal factor of poor psychosocial wellbeing or elevated psychosis risk and instead identify several social and systemic causal factors commonly faced by Hispanic/Latino Americans. We suggest that language reporting on minority mental health acknowledge systemic factors as contributing to poor outcome rather than referring to ethnicity as if it were a causal factor.
COVID-19 大流行使少数民族面临的心理健康和身体健康方面的差异成为焦点。在美国，西班牙裔/拉丁裔社区普遍存在精神疾病和创伤问题。由于常见的言论往往将西班牙裔/拉丁裔族裔视为一个致病因素，尽管有明确的证据表明存在系统性原因，包括无法获得资源和歧视，这使情况更加恶化。
为了将西班牙裔/拉丁裔族裔与幸福感的决定因素（如创伤、财务状况和孤独感）区分开来，我们通过一项英文和西班牙文在线匿名调查，在 COVID-19 期间检查了心理健康和身体健康状况。
我们检查了三个参与者群体的幸福感，其中包括两组具有不同程度的“融入”其居住国主流文化的西班牙裔/拉丁裔成年人：居住在西班牙语国家和/或中美洲或拉丁美洲国家的西班牙裔/拉丁裔个人（第 1 组）、居住在美国的西班牙裔/拉丁裔个人（第 2 组）和居住在美国的非西班牙裔/拉丁裔个人（第 3 组）。
结果表明，在幸福感的特定方面，各组之间存在显著差异。最重要的是，结果表明，西班牙裔/拉丁裔族裔本身并不能显著预测心理社会幸福感或精神病风险，并确定了这些结果的几个预测因素，包括美国居住、创伤、孤独感和年龄。
我们的结果表明，西班牙裔/拉丁裔族裔本身并不是心理社会幸福感差或精神病风险升高的致病因素，而是确定了西班牙裔/拉丁裔美国人通常面临的几个社会和系统性致病因素。我们建议，关于少数族裔心理健康的语言报道应承认系统性因素是造成不良结果的原因，而不是将族裔视为致病因素。
