Open AccessRacial and Cultural Factors Affecting the Mental Health of Asian Americans
Author(s) -
Miller Matthew J.,
Yang Minji,
Farrell Jerome A.,
Lin LiLing
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
american journal of orthopsychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.959
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1939-0025
pISSN - 0002-9432
DOI - 10.1111/j.1939-0025.2011.01118.x
Subject(s) - acculturation , mental health , psychology , structural equation modeling , clinical psychology , self efficacy , racism , asian americans , immigration , ethnic group , developmental psychology , social psychology , psychiatry , sociology , anthropology , history , gender studies , statistics , mathematics , archaeology
In this study, we employed structural equation modeling to test the degree to which racism‐related stress, acculturative stress, and bicultural self‐efficacy were predictive of mental health in a predominantly community‐based sample of 367 Asian American adults. We also tested whether bicultural self‐efficacy moderated the relationship between acculturative stress and mental health. Finally, we examined whether generational status moderated the impact of racial and cultural predictors of mental health by testing our model across immigrant and U.S.‐born samples. Results indicated that our hypothesized structural model represented a good fit to the total sample data. While racism‐related stress, acculturative stress, and bicultural self‐efficacy were significant predictors of mental health in the total sample analyses, our generational analyses revealed a differential predictive pattern across generational status. Finally, we found that the buffering effect of bicultural self‐efficacy on the relationship between acculturative stress and mental health was significant for U.S.‐born individuals only. Implications for research and service delivery are explored.