Stress, Depression, and Drug Use Among Aging Mexican American Men Living in the Barrio

Abstract

Residing in Mexican American barrios might place individuals at heightened risk for chronic financial and acute stress, which are associated with adverse mental health outcomes. Stressors could be exacerbated for substance users. This research explores relations between chronic financial stress, acute stress, and depressive symptomatology among aging Mexican American heroin and other drug-using men. A prospective cohort study and field-intensive outreach methodology were used to recruit 227 men for in-depth interviews. Participants were categorized into depressed and nondepressed groups based on symptomatology measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Chronic financial stress (i.e., poverty) and acute stress (i.e., Life Events Questionnaire) associated with depressive symptomatology were tested using logistic regression. Findings suggest scores of depressive symptoms among substance users are highly related to chronic financial stress. Community-level interventions targeting chronic stressors present in the barrio could be especially salient in improving the mental health of Latino drug users.

KEYWORDS:

• acute stress
• barrio
• chronic financial stress
• depression
• men
• Mexican American
• older Latinos
• substance use

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to Freddie Deleon, Richard Arcos, and Ronnie Cardenas, who worked in the field to collect these data. Data utilized for this analysis are archived and available through the University of Michigan, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).

FUNDING

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Grant Number 1 R24 DA019798.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Grant Number 1 R24 DA019798.