Understanding Suicide-Related Risk in Immigrant and Ethnic and Racial Minority Youth Through an Ecological and Developmental Context

Abstract

The US is home to the world’s largest immigrant population, with an estimated 51 million foreign-born migrants, who largely originate from the global south. A significant proportion of the US population thus experiences acculturation or psychological changes as they navigate between different cultural environments. Contemporary conceptualizations of acculturation draw on a bidimensional conceptualization that posits heritage retention and acquisition of the host culture as independent dimensions spread across cultural identification, values, and practices. Such models facilitate the study of the impact of acculturative processes on suicide-related risk in immigrant adolescents, particularly of ethnic and racial minority background. Although early findings suggest immigrant youth are at lower risk for suicide than US-born youth, recent findings indicate this relation is more nuanced and that acculturative processes may play an important role in suicide-related risk in immigrant and racial and ethnic minority adolescents.This chapter reviews traditional and contemporary models of acculturation and describes the role of acculturation in suicide-related risk among adolescents from immigrant families. Potential explanatory mechanisms behind the association between acculturation and suicide-related risk are identified, as well as conceptual and methodological limitations that have been prominent in the field of acculturation. Recommendations are provided pointing out how the field might best move forward. This chapter concludes with clinical implications and discusses the benefits of integrating acculturation into suicide prevention strategies to reduce suicide-related risk in immigrant and ethnic and racial minority adolescents.

Acculturative orientations among Hispanic/Latinx caregivers in the ABCD Study: Associations with caregiver and youth mental health and youth brain function

“…Comparison of ABCD bicultural and detached profiles indicated that biculturalism was associated with more positive mental health outcomes in agreement with a wealth of previous acculturation research (10,18,19,71,72). However, these prior studies are characterized by the use of individual rating inventories that separately measure symptoms of a single disorder (e.g., depression).…”

“…Comparison of ABCD bicultural and detached profiles indicated similar demographics, with the exception of higher educational attainment among bicultural caregivers. Biculturalism was associated with positive caregiver behaviors and mental health, including increased personal strengths and decreased affective and thought problems, in agreement with a wealth of prior acculturation research (8,9,15,23,24).…”

“…Future work will need to address the extent to which detached orientations may reflect low behavioral activation system (BAS) (73) sensitivity or anhedonia and low social approach (74)(75)(76), resulting in reduced effort to obtain rewards and/or low sensitivity to rewards. Such links would represent significant progress in establishing clinical phenotypes of acculturation that have been previously related to outcomes such as depression (17,20), substance use (72,77), and suicide risk (71).…”

“…Importantly, it is critical that researchers consider the impact of factors related to social determinants of health (6). The goal of this study was to demonstrate the importance of considering cultural variables, with a focus on the exemplar domain of acculturation, which has been linked to a variety of outcomes, including alcohol use (7), cigarette smoking (8), and suicide risk (9).…”

Acculturative Orientations Among Hispanic/Latinx Caregivers in the ABCD Study: Associations With Caregiver and Youth Mental Health and Youth Brain Function

“…Comparison of ABCD Study bicultural and detached profiles indicated that biculturalism was associated with more positive mental health outcomes, in agreement with a wealth of previous acculturation research ( 10 , 66 , 67 ). However, these prior studies are characterized by the use of individual rating inventories that separately measure symptoms of a single disorder (e.g., depression).…”