Correlates of Alcohol and Tobacco Use Among Mexican Immigrants in Rural North Carolina

Abstract

This study examined the relationship among sociodemographic, cultural, and psychological factors associated with alcohol and tobacco use among Mexican immigrants in the rural south. Questionnaires including sociodemographics, alcohol and tobacco use, acculturation, and stress were administered to 173 Mexican immigrants residing in rural eastern North Carolina. Gender, preimmigration use, and occupational/economic stress were significant predictors for alcohol use, with preimmigration use significant for tobacco use, suggesting that alcohol and tobacco use may be related to previous behavior, rather than acculturation to American society. Stress, setting, and preimmigration substance use would be important factors to address in the immigrant's health history.

Changes in Family Cohesion and Acculturative Stress among Recent Latino Immigrants

“…This scale is a measure of psychosocial stress-event experiences for Latino immigrants. It has been widely used with this population (Ellison, Finch, Ryan, & Salinas, 2009; Loury & Kulbok, 2007). The instrument contains 18 questions.…”

The Impact of Religious Coping on the Acculturative Stress and Alcohol Use of Recent Latino Immigrants

“…If the stressor was experienced, then a subsequent follow-up question is asked regarding the appraisal of how stressful that particular event was to the respondent (1 = not at all to 5 = extremely ). This scale has been widely used with predominantly Mexican immigrant samples (Ellison et al, 2009; Loury & Kulbok, 2007). However, the existing literature suggests that factors such as country of origin and the context of a receiving community may have distinct impacts on the acculturative stressors experienced by recent Latino immigrants (Schwartz et al, 2010).…”

Drug Resistance and Substance Use Among Male and Female Adolescents in Alternative Secondary Schools in Guanajuato, Mexico

“…This gap is often attributed to cultural norms that permit and even encourage males to use substances like alcohol to the point of inebriation while negatively sanctioning substance use by females as a behavior that is inconsistent with traditional gender roles (Caetano and Medina-Mora, 1988;Loury and Kulbok, 2007;Medina-Mora and Rojas Guiot, 2003;Wycoff, 2000). The current study contributes to this line of research by showing that more than half of the gender gap in use of both legal and illegal substances occurs because males are more likely to receive substance offers than are females, as has been suggested in other research in Mexico (Benjet et al, 2007a).…”