Former postbaccs Sarita Panchang and Hilary Dowdy published a paper with Rachel Kimbro and Bridget Gorman, entitled, “Self-Rated Health, Gender, and Acculturative Stress among Immigrants in the U.S.: New Roles for Social Support.”
Utilizing the 2002-2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), the paper examines relationships between acculturative stress and self-rated physical and mental health, as well as the potential role of social support factors, with a primary focus on gender. Among Latino immigrants acculturative stress has no association with health, and for Asian immigrants there is an association with physical health among women and mental health among men – but only the latter persisted after adjusting for controls. In addition, among Latino men and women, acculturative stress is health-damaging when specific types of social support are low but can even be health promoting at higher support levels.