Trauma Made in America: The Consequences of Violent Victimization for Immigrant Youth in Early Adulthood.

Research finds that adolescent violent victimization results in numerous lasting negative life consequences. However, the long-term impacts of victimization are understudied among immigrant youth. Using a subsample of 952 immigrants from Waves I-III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, regression models are specified to determine whether violent victimization in adolescence is related to negative outcomes in early adulthood (poor health, depressive symptoms, low self-esteem, suicidality, alcohol problems, drug use, property offending, and violent offending). Results indicate that victimization has no robust associations with any long-term adverse outcomes among immigrants. The findings are discussed using perspectives on immigrant resilience and highlight the need for research to further explore how immigrant youth overcome their experiences with violence.

Weaving culture with consequence: Immigrant status and child maltreatment outcomes in early adulthood.

BACKGROUND: Child maltreatment is associated with a host of negative consequences over the life course, the most concerning of which is violence. Nevertheless, many abused and neglected youth do not grow up and commit violence. Meanwhile, research consistently finds an immigrant paradox, where foreign-born nativity is protective against a range of negative life outcomes. It may be that immigrants to the U.S. are more resilient to child maltreatment and less likely to engage in violence later in life. OBJECTIVE: This study contributes to the literature on victimization and the immigrant paradox by determining whether the effect of child maltreatment on later violence varies between immigrants and non-immigrants. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The present study uses a subsample of 964 foreign- and 12,808 native-born persons from Waves I and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. METHODS: Logistic regression models are specified and interaction terms are used to determine moderating effects of immigrant status on the link between child maltreatment and later violence. RESULTS: Findings indicate that child maltreatment significantly increased the odds of violent behavior in early adulthood by nearly 64 %, and this result was not moderated by immigrant status. Supplemental analyses continued to show generality in maltreatment effects. CONCLUSIONS: The idea that child maltreatment is less harmful among foreign-born persons, or that they are able to "bounce back" from this form of victimization due to their unique multicultural assets, is not evidenced here. Key policy implications include a need for culturally competent victim services.

Undoing resilience: immigrant status and poor health following incarceration.

BACKGROUND: In the United States, foreign-born persons often have better health outcomes than their native-born peers, despite exposure to adversity. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether this pattern extends to the consequences of life events, such as incarceration, that separate immigrants from their supportive networks and increase exposure to adversity. Accordingly, using four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, hierarchical generalized linear models were used to examine within-individual changes in self-rated health following first incarceration (N = 31,202 person-waves). RESULTS: The results showed that incarceration was associated with modest health declines that were similar in magnitude for immigrant and native-born persons. Supplemental analyses revealed that these effects did not vary by immigrant race or ethnicity, or by age at immigration. The only exception was for immigrants from low- and middle-income countries, who were marginally less likely to experience health declines following incarceration. CONCLUSIONS: In general, incarceration appears to be similarly health damaging for immigrants and non-immigrants. These findings raise important questions about how incarceration is linked to health declines for foreign- and native-born populations and emphasize the importance of access to healthcare for individuals released from correctional facilities. More research is needed, however, to further examine the cumulative impacts of incarceration on immigrants' health across the life course, and to assess a broader spectrum of health outcomes.