Determinants of Problem Drinking and Depression among Latino Day Laborers

Abstract

Little is known about alcohol misuse and depression among Latino day laborers despite the fact that they encounter multiple stressors (e.g., job instability, unsafe work environments). A structural equation model tested the relationships among laborer stress, social support, health status, current alcohol misuse, and depression. A sample of 89 male, urban Latino day laborers completed measures assessing these constructs in 2011. Stress was negatively related to physical health status, which was associated with depression. Findings suggest that stressors specific to being a day laborer resulting from their work and living conditions generate and maintain health disparities in this vulnerable population.

Keywords :

• Latino day laborers
• migrant stress
• depression and alcohol use
• health disparities

THE AUTHORS

Guadalupe A. Bacio, M.A. is an advanced doctoral student in the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Clinical Psychology program. She is currently completing her clinical internship at the University of California San Diego/Veterans Affairs Psychology Internship Training Program. Ms. Bacio's research interests focus on examining risk and protective factors for alcohol and drug misuse and related mental health issues among vulnerable Latino populations in the United States.

Alison Moore, M.D. is an internist/geriatrician/health services researcher and Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at UCLA. Dr. Moore completed her fellowship in geriatrics and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program at UCLA in 1994 and has remained on the faculty since then. Dr. Moore is an Associate Division Chief in Geriatrics and also Chair of UCLA's South General Institutional Review Board. Dr. Moore's research interests are focused on alcohol and aging. Other professional interests include development of clinical and research faculty and finding ways to improve the health of older Californians.

Mitchell Karno, Ph.D. is a research psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and is the Director of Alcohol Studies at the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. Dr. Karno's primary research areas include patient-treatment matching, mechanisms of behavior change for alcoholism, and screening for alcohol problems. Dr. Karno is currently PI for a NIAAA career development award on cognitive neuroscience of decision making in recovery from alcoholism and Co-PI for a NIDA clinical trial examining a model of screening and brief intervention for hazardous substance use among patients in mental health treatment settings.

Lara A. Ray, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and completed her clinical internship and fellowship at Brown University. Dr. Ray's research focuses on the integration of clinical and experimental psychology, pharmacology, and behavioral genetics of addiction.

Notes

1 The reader is reminded that the concepts of “risk factors,” as well as “protective factors,” are often noted in the literature, without adequately noting their dimensions (linear, nonlinear; rates of development; anchoring or integration, cessation, etc.), their “demands,” the critical necessary conditions (endogenously as well as exogenously; from a micro to a meso to a macro level) which are necessary for either of them to operate (begin, continue, become anchored and integrate, change as de facto realities change, cease, etc.) or not to and whether their underpinnings are theory-driven, empirically-based, individual, and/or systemic stake holder-bound, based upon “principles of faith, doctrinaire positions,” “personal truths,” historical observation, precedents, and traditions that accumulate over time, conventional wisdom, perceptual and judgmental constraints, “transient public opinion.” or what. This is necessary to consider and to clarify if these term are not to remain as yet additional shibboleth in a field of many stereotypes, tradition-driven activities, “principles of faith” and stakeholder objectives. Editor's note.