Parental immigrant status and adolescent mental health in the United States: do racial/ethnic differences exist?

Abstract

To examine the relationship between mental health problems and parental immigrant status in a representative sample of US adolescents aged 12-17. We analyzed the US 2007 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) restricted to 32,849 adolescents aged 12-17. Parents or guardians in random-digit-dial sampled households were interviewed by telephone from April 2007 through July 2008 about one of their children, selected at random. Five mental health measures were used: prior medical diagnoses of (a) depression, (b) anxiety, and (c) behavioral problems; parental reports of the adolescent (d) feeling inferior/worthless, and (e) episodes of being withdrawal from others. Logistic regression models were employed to examine the relationship between mental health problems and parental immigrant status. Overall, 19.4% of adolescents had at least one immigrant parent. After adjusting for sociodemographic factors, all adolescents with immigrant parents have decreased odds of behavioral problems (OR 0.43, p < .000), but no significant differences in the odds of depression, anxiety, worthlessness, and withdrawal compared to adolescents with US-born parents. Similarly, White, Black, and Hispanic adolescents with immigrant parents had decreased odds of behavioral problems (OR 0.35, p < .000; OR 0.31, p < .01; and OR 0.24, p < .05, respectively) compared to their counterparts with US-born parents. Evaluation of psychological and mental health problems among adolescents in the United States should take parental immigrant status and other sociodemographic factors into account.