Anxiety Sensitivity Among Non-Hispanic Black Adults: Relations to Mental Health and Psychosomatic States.

The non-Hispanic Black adult population has notable disparities in mental and physical health compared to several other racial/ethnic groups. Yet, there is a lack of scientific knowledge about psychologically based individual difference factors that may be associated with an exacerbation of common mental and physical health symptoms among non-Hispanic Black persons. The present investigation sought to build on the limited knowledge about anxiety sensitivity among non-Hispanic Black adults by exploring whether this construct was uniquely associated with a range of prevalent mental health and psychosomatic symptoms commonly tied to disparities among this population. Participants included non-Hispanic Black adults (N = 205; Mage = 21.67 years; SDage = 5.39; age range: 18-60 years; 82.0% female). Results indicated that anxiety sensitivity was positively related to anxious arousal, general depression, insomnia, fatigue severity, and somatic symptom severity; effects were evident above and beyond the variance explained by a range of covariates, including age, sex, education, subjective social status, and neuroticism. Overall, the present findings uniquely build from past research on anxiety sensitivity and non-Hispanic Black adults by demonstrating that individual differences in this construct are consistently and relatively robustly associated with a wide range of mental health and psychosomatic symptoms. Future research that builds from this work may benefit from consideration of intervention programming targeting anxiety sensitivity reduction to offset mental and physical health impairments among the non-Hispanic Black population.

Financial strain among adult African American/Black cannabis users.

African American/Black persons belong to the second largest racial/ethnic minority group in the United States. This group evinces significant disparities related to cannabis use problems. Social determinants of health may be potentially relevant to better understand cannabis use problems among African American/Black adults. As such, the current study sought to provide an initial test of the role of financial strain, a prominent social determinant of health, in cannabis use problems and perceived barriers for cannabis cessation among African American/Black adults. Participants were 76 (32.9% female, Mage = 38.64, SD = 10.82) African American/Black adult, current cannabis users. Hierarchical regression results indicated that greater financial strain was associated with more cannabis use problems and greater perceived barriers for cannabis cessation; such effects were evident above and beyond the variance explained by a range of relevant covariates, including age, sex, income, education, and depressive symptoms. These findings suggest addressing financial strain (e.g., financial planning, psychoeducation about the handling financial stress) may be a useful therapeutic tactic in the larger landscape of treatment programming when targeting cannabis use behaviors and beliefs among African American/Black adult cannabis users.

Worry Among Latinx Young Adults: Relations to Pain Experience, Pain-Related Anxiety, and Perceived Health.

Latinx are one of the largest and most rapidly growing segments of the United States (U.S.) population that is significantly impacted by health disparities, including somatic health problems. Young Latinx adults (ages 18-25 years) are at a greater risk for being affected by such health inequalities and there is a need to understand individual-based differences that may contribute to and maintain somatic symptoms, including pain experience, pain beliefs, and perceptions of health. Thus, the current study investigated the explanatory role of worry in association between pain intensity, pain disability, pain-related anxiety, and perceived health among Latinx college students. Participants included 401 (Mage = 21 years; SD = 2.02; 83% female) Latinx students at a large, southwestern university. Results indicated that greater levels of worry were related to increased levels of pain intensity, pain disability, pain-related anxiety, and lower levels of perceived health. These findings were evident above and beyond variance accounted for by gender, age, physical functioning, and subjective social status. Overall, the results from the present investigation suggest that there is greater risk for more severe pain experiences, maladaptive beliefs regarding pain, and worse perceptions of health status among Latinx young adults who experience elevated levels of worry.

Financial strain and cognitive-based smoking processes: The explanatory role of depressive symptoms among adult daily smokers.

Little work has focused on the underlying mechanisms that may link financial strain and smoking processes. The current study tested the hypothesis that financial strain would exert an indirect effect on cognitive-based smoking processes via depressive symptoms. Three clinically significant dependent variables linked to the maintenance of smoking were evaluated: negative affect reduction motives, negative mood abstinence expectancies, and perceived barriers for quitting. Participants included 102 adult daily smokers (Mage=33.0years, SD=13.60; 35.3% female) recruited from the community to participate in a self-guided (unaided; no psychological or pharmacological intervention) smoking cessation study. Results indicated that depressive symptoms explain, in part, the relation between financial strain and smoking motives for negative affect reduction, negative mood abstinence expectancies, and perceived barriers for quitting. Results indicate that smoking interventions for individuals with high levels of financial strain may potentially benefit from the addition of therapeutic tactics aimed at reducing depression.

Distress tolerance dimensions and smoking behavior among Mexican daily smokers: A preliminary investigation.

INTRODUCTION: Distress intolerance has been implicated in various aspects of smoking maintenance and quit behavior, although past work has been conducted almost exclusively among European American samples. METHOD: The present study sought to extend past work by exploring distinct subdimensions of distress tolerance (Tolerance, Appraisal, Regulation, and Absorption) among a sample of 113 (53.1% female; Mage=22.81, SD=2.13) adult daily smokers from Mexico City, Mexico in regard to multiple indices of problematic smoking. RESULTS: Results indicated that the Appraisal dimension of distress intolerance was associated with smoking more cigarettes per day, a greater number of (lifetime) failed quit attempts, and an increased likelihood of early smoking relapse. These findings remained significant after controlling for negative affectivity, gender, alcohol usage as well as the variance accounted for by other distress tolerance dimensions. CONCLUSIONS: Such results provide novel preliminary empirical evidence that lesser perceived ability to tolerate distress because it is appraised as 'unacceptable' may be a particularly important element of the construct in terms of better understanding multiple public health relevant indicators of smoking for Mexican smokers. Overall, the present findings uniquely contribute to a growing body of research related to distress intolerance and its implications for explicating the nature of the maintenance of smoking behavior among a highly understudied segment of the smoking population (Mexican smokers).

Synergistic effects of pain intensity and experiential avoidance in relation to anxiety symptoms and disorders among economically disadvantaged latinos in a community-based primary care setting.

Latinos are subject to numerous health inequalities, including mental health disparity for anxiety and its disorders. In fact, there is strikingly little understanding of transdiagnostic risk factors for the onset and development of anxiety symptoms and disorders among Latinos. To build knowledge in this domain, the present investigation examined the interactive effects of experiential avoidance and pain intensity in relation to anxious arousal, social anxiety, and anxiety disorders among 361 Latino adults with annual incomes of less than $30,000 (87.5% female; Mage=38.8, SD=11.4, and 98.5% used Spanish as their first language) who attended a community-based primary healthcare clinic. As hypothesized, the interaction between experiential avoidance and pain intensity was significantly related to anxious arousal, social anxiety, and a number of anxiety disorders over and above the effects of other factors. The form of the significant interactions indicated that participants reporting co-occurring higher levels of experiential avoidance and pain intensity evinced the greatest levels of anxious arousal, social anxiety, and anxiety disorders. These data provide novel empirical evidence suggesting that there is clinically-relevant interplay between experiential avoidance and pain intensity in regard to a relatively wide array of anxiety problems among Latinos in a primary care medical setting.