Latinos' Connections to Immigrants: How Knowing a Deportee Impacts Latino Health.

This manuscript examines how personally knowing a deportee and/or undocumented immigrant affects the mental health of Latina/o adults. Utilizing a new survey sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico (n=1,493), we estimate a series of logistic regressions to understand how personal connections to immigrants are affecting the mental health of Latinos using stress process theory. Our modeling approach takes into consideration the socio-political, familial, cultural, and personal contexts that make up the Latina/o experience, which is widely overlooked in data-sets that treat Latinos as a homogeneous ethnic group. Our findings suggest that knowing a deportee increases the odds of having to seek help for mental health problems. The significance of this work has tremendous implications for policy makers, health service providers, and researchers interested in reducing health disparities among minority populations especially under a new administration, which has adopted more punitive immigration policies and enforcement.

What's Your "Street Race"? Leveraging Multidimensional Measures of Race and Intersectionality for Examining Physical and Mental Health Status Among Latinxs.

Using the 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey (N= 1,197) we examine the relationship between physical and mental health status and three multidimensional measures of race: 1) "street race," or how you believe other "Americans" perceive your race at the level of the street; 2) socially assigned race or what we call "ascribed race," which refers to how you believe others usually classify your race in the U.S.; and 3) "self-perceived race," or how you usually self-classify your race on questionnaires. We engage in intersectional inquiry by combining street race and gender. We find that only self-perceived race correlates with physical health and that street race is associated with mental health. We also find that men reporting their street race as Latinx1 or Arab were associated with higher odds of reporting worse mental health outcomes. One surprising finding was that, for physical health, men reporting their street race as Latinx were associated with higher odds of reporting optimal physical health. Among women, those reporting their street race as Mexican were associated with lower odds of reporting optimal physical health when compared to all other women; for mental health status, however, we found no differences among women. We argue that "street race" is a promising multidimensional measure of race for exploring inequality among Latinxs.

The Impact of Punitive Immigrant Laws on the Health of Latina/o Populations.

This study examines how anti-immigrant policies affect the physical health of Latina/os in the United States. Merging two unique datasets: sum of anti-immigrant policies by state from 2005-2011 and a 2011 Robert Wood Johnson Center for Health Policy nationally representative sample of Latina/os (n=1,200), we estimate a series of logistic regressions to understand how anti-immigrant legislations are affecting the health of Latina/os. Our modeling approach takes into consideration Latinos' diverse experience, context that is widely overlooked in datasets that treat Latina/os as a homogeneous ethnic group. Our findings suggest that an increase in anti-immigrant laws enacted by a state decreases the probability of respondents reporting optimal health, even when controlling for other relevant factors, such as citizenship status, language of interview, and interethnic variation. The implication and significance of this work has tremendous impacts for scholars, policy makers, health service providers and applied researchers interested in reducing health disparities among minority populations.

Fear by Association: Perceptions of Anti-Immigrant Policy and Health Outcomes.

The United States is experiencing a renewed period of immigration and immigrant policy activity as well as heightened enforcement of such policies. This intensified activity can affect various aspects of immigrant health, including mental health. We use the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey (n = 1,493) to examine the relationship between immigration and immigrant policy and Latino health and well-being. We estimate a series of categorical regression models and find that there are negative health consequences associated with Latinos' perceptions of living in states with unfavorable anti-immigration laws, including reporting poor health and problems with mental health. This article builds on the work of public health scholars who have found a link between this heightened policy environment and the mental health of immigrants, yet expands on this research by finding that the health consequences associated with immigration policy extend to Latinos broadly, not just immigrants. These findings are relevant to scholars of immigration and health policy as well as policy makers who should consider these negative effects on the immigrant community during their decision-making process.