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Immigration, citizenship, and the mental health of adolescents

PURPOSE: To examine the reported mental health outcomes of adolescent foreign-born non-citizens and adolescent foreign-born U.S. citizens compared to adolescent U.S.-born citizens. METHODS: Using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in the National Health Interview Survey, we compared mental...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Filion, Nicole, Fenelon, Andrew, Boudreaux, Michel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5933703/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29723297
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196859
Descripción
Sumario:PURPOSE: To examine the reported mental health outcomes of adolescent foreign-born non-citizens and adolescent foreign-born U.S. citizens compared to adolescent U.S.-born citizens. METHODS: Using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in the National Health Interview Survey, we compared mental health status of U.S.-born adolescent citizens to foreign-born citizens and non-citizens in the years 2010–2015, and examined how differences in emotional difficulty changed based on time spent in the U.S. RESULTS: Results suggest that non-citizen adolescents experience better mental health outcomes than U.S.-born citizens. However, the mental health status of foreign-born citizens is indistinguishable from that of the U.S.-born, after accounting for basic socio-demographic characteristics. The prevalence of emotional difficulty experienced by immigrant adolescents increased with a family’s duration in the U.S. CONCLUSION: Our findings are consistent with a broader health advantage for the foreign-born, but we present new evidence that the mental health advantage of foreign-born adolescents exists only for non-citizens.