Predictors of Generalized Anxiety Disorder in Mexican Immigrants: The Role of Acculturative Stress and Discrimination

Publication Date

Spring 4-22-2026

Presentation Length

Poster/Gallery presentation

College

College of Sciences & Mathematics

Department

Psychological Sciences and Neurosciences, Department of

Student Level

Undergraduate

Faculty Mentor

Adam Smiley

Metadata/Fulltext

Metadata ONLY

Presentation Type

Article

Summary

Being a foreign-born immigrant generally has protective factors from anxiety symptoms, but these protective factors do not hold for the Mexican population (Szaflarski et al., 2017). Within Mexican immigrants, direct and indirect migration itself increases anxiety symptoms and the likelihood of meeting the criteria for a psychiatric disorder (Borges et al., 2015; Garcini et al., 2017). Previous studies have demonstrated that fear of deportation and law enforcement is a common acculturative stressor in this population (Arbona et al., 2014; Ryan et al., 2021). Furthermore, familial and personal experience with immigration related discrimination is associated with increased anxiety levels in undocumented Mexican immigrants (Rodriguez et al., 2023). Less research has examined the additional effects of non-immigration-related racial discrimination experiences and government interaction stress on anxiety in Mexican immigrants, documented and undocumented. The current study aims to explore what specific experiences lead to anxiety in Mexicans immigrating to the U.S., using quantitative interview data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES) from 2001-2003 (N = 4,639). I hypothesize that acculturative stress around government interaction significantly increases the outcome of Generalized Anxiety Disorder in Mexican immigrants to the U.S. Additionally, I hypothesize that direct and indirect experience with racial discrimination increases the outcome of Generalized Anxiety Disorder in Mexican immigrants to the U.S. Data will be analyzed and the results will be presented at SPARK.

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