Abstract
Latinos are disproportionately impacted by drinking and driving arrests and alcohol-related fatal crashes. Why, and how, these disparities occur remains unclear. The neighborhood environments that recent Latino immigrants encounter in their host communities can potentially influence health behaviors over time, including the propensity to engage in drinking and driving. This cross-sectional study utilizes a sample of 467 documented and undocumented adult recent Latino immigrants in the United States to answer the following research questions: (a) How do neighborhood-level factors, combined with social support, impact drinking and driving risk behaviors?; and (b) Does acculturative stress moderate the effects of those associations? Results indicate neighborhood-level factors (informal social control and social capital) have protective effects against drinking and driving risk behaviors via the mediating mechanism of social support. Acculturative stress moderated associations between neighborhood informal social control and social support, whereby the protective effects of informal social control on social support were not present for those immigrants with higher levels of acculturative stress. Our findings contribute to the limited knowledge of drinking and driving among Latino immigrants early in the immigration process and suggest that, in the process of developing prevention programs tailored to Latino immigrants, greater attention must be paid to neighborhood-level factors.
Highlights
In the United States, alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes represent a major public health problem
The present study proposes the intersectionality of segmented assimilation, social capital, and social disorganization theory to assume increased trajectories of drinking and driving over time among recent Latino immigrants unless bolstered and supported by regular access to protective neighborhood-level factors
The overarching aims of this study are to elucidate the mechanisms whereby neighborhood-level factors impact Driving Under the Influence (DUI) risk behaviors among recent adult Latino immigrants by: (a) testing if social support mediates the effects of neighborhood informal social control and social capital on DUI risk behaviors; and (b) determining if acculturative stress moderates the effects of neighborhood informal social control and social capital on DUI risk behaviors
Summary
In the United States, alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes represent a major public health problem. Latinos in the U.S are impacted by drinking and driving health disparities [1]. As defined by the National Institutes of Health, health disparities are differences in the prevalence, incidence, mortality, and burden of diseases and other deleterious health conditions existing among specific population groups [2]. Compared to non-Latino Whites, Latinos have consistently had a. Res. Public Health 2016, 13, 1055; doi:10.3390/ijerph13111055 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
