The Comparability of Perceived Physical and Mental Health Measures Across Immigrants and Natives in the United States

Measuring social-emotional development in schoolchildren: A national-level analysis of ECLS-B cohort data

The present study examined the social-emotional development items assessed by kindergarten teachers in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort to determine the optimal factor structure underlying the items as well as the reliability and validity of the resulting factors. This study identified an empirically derived factor structure for teacher-reported social development, investigated whether there was evidence of bias in teacher assessments of social-emotional constructs, examined factor invariance across demographic characteristics (i.e., race and ethnicity, sex, and poverty status), and examined the external validity of the derived factors by determining the extent to which they were associated with well-established measures of early childhood competencies. Findings suggested a 4-factor solution was optimal, consisting of (a) Interpersonal Skills, (b) Externalizing Behavior, (c) Approaches to Learning, and (d) Perspective Taking. Findings offer suggestive evidence of teacher biases in assessments and some, although not conclusive, support for the invariance of social-emotional dimension across demographic characteristics. Results provide a useful next step toward documenting reliable and valid social-emotional measures for use in early childhood research and challenges users of national datasets to think critically about the use of "scales" without a priori attention to important psychometric properties.

Deportation threat predicts Latino US citizens and noncitizens' psychological distress, 2011 to 2018

The national context of deportation threat, defined as the federal government's approach to deportation and/or deportation's salience to the US public, fluctuated between 2011 and 2018. US Latinos across citizenship statuses may have experienced growing psychological distress associated with these changes, given their disproportionate personal or proximal vulnerabilities to deportation. Drawing on 8 y of public- and restricted-access data from the National Health Interview Survey (2011 to 2018), this article examines trends in psychological distress among Latinos who are US-born citizens, naturalized citizens, and noncitizens. It then seeks to explain these trends by considering two theoretical pathways through which the national context of deportation threat could distress Latinos: 1) through discrete dramatic societal events that independently signal a change to the country's approach to deportation and/or that render deportation temporarily more salient to the public or 2) through more gradual changes to the country's everyday institutional (i.e., quotidian efforts to detain and deport noncitizens) and social (i.e., deportation's ongoing salience to a concerned public) environment of deportation threat. We find that, though both pathways matter to some degree, there is more consistent evidence that the gradual changes are associated with Latino US citizens and noncitizens' overall experiences of psychological distress. The article highlights how, even absent observable spillover effects of dramatic societal events bearing on deportation threat, the institutional and social environment in which they occur implicates Latinos' well-being.

Measurement invariance in the social sciences: Historical development, methodological challenges, state of the art, and future perspectives

This review summarizes the current state of the art of statistical and (survey) methodological research on measurement (non)invariance, which is considered a core challenge for the comparative social sciences. After outlining the historical roots, conceptual details, and standard procedures for measurement invariance testing, the paper focuses in particular on the statistical developments that have been achieved in the last 10 years. These include Bayesian approximate measurement invariance, the alignment method, measurement invariance testing within the multilevel modeling framework, mixture multigroup factor analysis, the measurement invariance explorer, and the response shift-true change decomposition approach. Furthermore, the contribution of survey methodological research to the construction of invariant measurement instruments is explicitly addressed and highlighted, including the issues of design decisions, pretesting, scale adoption, and translation. The paper ends with an outlook on future research perspectives.

Scoping review protocol on the health of sub-Saharan African migrants in the Asia-Pacific region

INTRODUCTION

Increasing economic opportunities have attracted people from sub-Saharan Africa to migrate to the Asia-Pacific region in the last two decades. The information on the health situation of these migrants is limited. We aim to assess scientific evidence on the health of sub-Saharan African migrants in the Asia-Pacific region using a scoping review.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The review will be conducted according to the JBI guide on evidence synthesis, and the final results will be organised and reported in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews. Search strategies have been developed centred on population-concept-context elements including sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific, migration and health. A total of eight databases will be searched, including PubMed, Embase, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, ProQuest, Scopus, Web of Science, Wanfang and CNKI. Title and abstract screening and full-text screening will be conducted by two researchers independently. Data will be charted according to predesigned form.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This study involves neither human participants nor unpublished secondary data. Institutional review board approval is therefore not required. Findings of this scoping review will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed journal, through academic network and project report.

Acculturative Stress, Perceived Social Support, and Mental Health: The Mediating Effect of Negative Emotions Associated with Discrimination

The role of perceived social support in the acculturation process of immigrants remains unclear. In this study, we jointly evaluated the associations between acculturative stress and negative emotions associated with discrimination as antecedents of anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms in 283 immigrants living in Chile. Three competing models were tested via structural equation modelling to assess (1) the association among these variables and mental health symptoms and (2) to clarify the role of perceived social support. The third model was theoretically more adequate, showed a better fit, and explained 42.7% of the variance of mental health symptoms. In this model, perceived social support was associated with acculturative stress by reducing mental health symptomatology. Moreover, a direct relationship and an indirect relationship were found between acculturative stress (through negative emotions associated with discrimination) and mental health symptomatology. These results contribute to the understanding of the acculturation process experienced by immigrants in Chile and provide empirical evidence to be used to improve migration policies.

Black Nativity and Health Disparities: A Research Paradigm for Understanding the Social Determinants of Health

After more than a century of research and debate, the scientific community has yet to reach agreement on the principal causes of racialized disparities in population health. This debate currently centers on the degree to which "race residuals" are a result of unobserved differences in the social context or unobserved differences in population characteristics. The comparative study of native and foreign-born Black populations represents a quasi-experimental design where race is "held constant". Such studies present a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of the social determinants of population health disparities. Since native and foreign-born Black populations occupy different sociocultural locations, and since populations with greater African ancestry have greater genetic diversity, comparative studies of these populations will advance our understanding of the complex relationship between sociocultural context, population characteristics and health outcomes. Therefore, we offer a conceptual framing for the comparative study of native and foreign-born Blacks along with a review of 208 studies that compare the mental and physical health of these populations. Although there is some complexity, especially with respect to mental health, the overall pattern is that foreign-born Blacks have better health outcomes than native-born Blacks. After reviewing these studies, we conclude with suggestions for future studies in this promising area of social and medical research.

Disability and self-rated health: Exploring foreign- and U.S.-born differences across adulthood

There is limited inquiry regarding how immigrant status intersects with disability to influence health across adulthood. As the U.S. population continues to age, especially immigrants, understanding how disability influences health is imperative. Using 2010-2018 National Health Interview Survey data (n = 461,010) and logistic regression models, we investigate how differences in reporting Activity of Daily Living (ADL) disability influence reports of self-rated health (SRH) between foreign- and U.S.-born respondents (ages 25+) by race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic Asian) by age group (25-64 and 65+). Among those ages 25-64, foreign-born respondents generally report lower or similar rates of fair/poor SRH and ADL disability when compared to their U.S.-born peers. Among those ages 65+, we find that foreign-born respondents are at greater risk of fair/poor SRH compared to their U.S.-born peers. Additionally, while having ADL disability greatly increases the likelihood of fair/poor SRH, the impact of this association differs by race/ethnicity/nativity and age. Among those 25-64, having ADL disability appears to be especially, negatively impactful for SRH among foreign-born groups, particularly Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. However, among those ages 65+, having ADL disability is less impactful on the SRH of foreign-born respondents, especially non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics. Our findings shed new light on marginalization-related diminished returns by showing how ADL disability influences SRH differently between foreign-born groups across adulthood.