Immigrant Well-being Project: Transdisciplinary Ecological Mental Health Intervention for Mexican Immigrants (IWP)

Addressing the Social-Structural Determinants of Mental Health Through Adaptation of a Transdisciplinary Ecological Intervention Model for Mexican Immigrants

The goal of this study is to test a transdisciplinary ecological approach to reducing mental health disparities among Mexican immigrants by adapting and integrating a multilevel community-based advocacy, learning, and social support intervention (Immigrant Well-being Project, IWP) into existing efforts at three community partner organizations that focus on mental health, education, legal, and civil rights issues for Mexican immigrants. This research is innovative and significant because it employs cutting edge strategies to address social-structural determinants of mental health and examines the community-engaged process of adapting and testing the impact of a multilevel intervention originally designed for refugees. The IWP intervention emphasizes a sustainable and replicable partnership model between community-based organizations and universities that involves Mexican immigrants and undergraduate advocates working together to: a) increase immigrants' abilities to navigate their communities; b) improve immigrants' access to community resources; c) enhance meaningful social roles by valuing immigrants' culture, experiences, and knowledge; d) reduce immigrants' social isolation; and e) increase communities' responsiveness to immigrants through changes in policy and practice. The IWP is administered by university students enrolled in a service learning course, and has two elements: 1) Learning Circles, which involve cultural exchange and one-on-one learning opportunities, and; 2) Advocacy, which involves collaborative efforts to mobilize community resources related to health, housing, employment, education, and legal issues. Studies of the intervention model with refugees demonstrated feasibility, appropriateness, acceptability, and evidence that the intervention decreased participants' psychological distress and increased protective factors, and impacted changes in system-wide policies and practices. After completing in-depth ethnographic interviews with 24 Mexican immigrant adults to elucidate their mental health needs, stressors, current political/economic/social context, and local solutions, and a process of community engagement and intervention adaptation, a mixed methods strategy with data collected from 90 participants at four time points over a period of 14 months will be used to test the impact of the 6-month intervention on reducing psychological distress, increasing protective factors (access to resources, English proficiency, environmental mastery, and social support), and achieving system-level changes in organizational, local, and state policies and practices that impact Mexican immigrants' well-being. Mechanisms of intervention effectiveness will be explored by testing mediating relationships between protective factors and psychological distress. Qualitative data will explore feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, participants' experiences in the intervention, and unexpected impacts; document multilevel changes and the context of implementation at each site; and inform interpretation of quantitative data. Quantitative and qualitative data on the quality of the CBPR partnerships and their relationship to multilevel outcomes will also be examined.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Mental Health
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Immigrant Well-Being Project

Detailed Description

The goal of this research is to advance the science of community-level mental health interventions that aim to reduce social inequities and health disparities. The proposed study will adapt and integrate a successfully implemented multilevel, ecological intervention that addresses social-structural determinants of mental health into existing efforts at three community partner organizations that focus on mental health, education, legal, and civil rights issues for Mexican immigrants in New Mexico. Using a mixed methods longitudinal design, the processes and outcomes of the collaborative, community-based intervention efforts, including the impact of the quality of the community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships on individual, organizational, and community-level outcomes, will be illuminated.

Social and structural inequities contribute significantly to increasing health disparities globally, with the increasing numbers of migrants throughout the world bearing a disproportionate burden. The immigrant share of the U.S. population has risen steadily over the past four decades, comprising 13.5% of the total population in 2015, with Mexican-born immigrants accounting for 27% of all immigrants. The social, legal, and economic context of the migration process, including increasing uncertainty, discrimination, stigma, lack of access to resources, and fear of deportation and family separation based on immigration policies and public perception of immigrants as a threat all have a critical impact on adverse mental health outcomes among Mexican immigrants in the U.S. In addition, Mexican immigrants have low utilization rates for mental healthcare, in part because of barriers that include lack of health insurance, ineligibility for governmental health programs, discrimination, lack of interpretation services and culturally appropriate care, and an anti-immigrant political and economic climate. Although evidence points to the need to address socio-structural determinants, many mental health interventions offered to Mexican immigrants have focused on individual-level predictors of mental health. Also, Mexican immigrants' health outcomes are often viewed within the Latino health paradox, and therefore are frequently overlooked in mental health research and development of appropriate interventions, despite mounting evidence of mental health disparities and disproportionate exposure to trauma. Thus, multilevel, transdisciplinary intervention approaches that address social-structural determinants of mental health, are culturally appropriate, build upon Mexican immigrants' strengths, are cost-effective and scalable, and occur in non-stigmatized settings are needed.

In prior NIH-funded research, the PI and community partners developed and tested a 6-month community-based advocacy, learning, and social support intervention, which pairs paraprofessional university students with refugee adults to engage in mutual learning and social change efforts. The intervention was found to decrease participants' psychological distress, improve their quality of life, access to resources, social support, and English proficiency, and improve communities' responsiveness to refugees; and also proved to be highly acceptable, cost effective, and sustainable. The objective of this study is to: a) adapt the intervention for Mexican immigrants (Immigrant Wellbeing Project; IWP); b) integrate IWP into existing efforts at three community partner organizations; and c) elucidate new understandings of partnership and intervention processes that lead to sustainable multilevel changes and the reduction of mental health disparities and related social inequities.

Aim 1. Conduct an in-depth study of the mental health needs, stressors, current political/economic/social context, and local solutions as experienced by 24 Mexican recent and non-recent immigrants and their families residing in Bernalillo County New Mexico and contextualized by staff at three community partner organizations.

Aim 2. Building on the data from Aim 1, use a CBPR approach to adapt the intervention model (IWP) and integrate it within existing service delivery and social change efforts at three community partner organizations.

Aim 3. Using a mixed methods longitudinal design, investigate the feasibility and acceptability of the adapted community-based mental health intervention and test the quality of the CBPR partnership and impact of the intervention on mental health problems and protective factors among 90 Mexican immigrants and on organizational and government changes in policies and practices impacting immigrant mental health.

3.1 The IWP and collaborative adaptation/integration process will be feasible and acceptable and will serve as a model for implementing and studying multilevel, community-based intervention efforts.

3.2 IWP participants' psychological distress will decrease significantly over time.

3.3 IWP participants' protective factors (access to resources, English proficiency, environmental mastery, social support) will increase significantly over time.

3.4 Lower levels of psychological distress will be mediated by the protective factors.

3.5 Qualitative data will document changes in organizational and governmental policies and practices and the context of implementation at each site, explore other impacts, and inform interpretation of quantitative data.

3.6 Quality of CBPR partnership at each site will be related to policy/practice changes and health outcomes.

As one of the core research projects of the Transdisciplinary Research, Equity and Engagement Center for Advancing Behavioral Health (TREE), this study will benefit from and contribute to collaborative efforts to elucidate and address the impact of social-structural (e.g., racism, lack of access to resources) and historical (e.g., violence, trauma, colonization) determinants of mental health for immigrant and indigenous populations.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 52
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New Mexico
    • Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, 87131
      • University of New Mexico

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Mexican immigrant
• Residing in Bernalillo County, New Mexico

Exclusion Criteria:

• Severe cognitive functioning problems
• Imminent suicide risk
• Mental illness that is so severe as to impede participation in a group and that warrants immediate individual treatment

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Other: Immigrant Well-being Project Intervention; Intervention

Behavioral: Immigrant Well-Being Project; The IWP intervention emphasizes a sustainable and replicable partnership model between community-based organizations and universities that involves Mexican immigrants and undergraduate advocates working together to: a) increase immigrants' abilities to navigate their communities; b) improve immigrants' access to community resources; c) enhance meaningful social roles by valuing immigrants' culture, experiences, and knowledge; d) reduce immigrants' social isolation; and e) increase communities' responsiveness to immigrants through changes in policy and practice. The IWP is administered by university students enrolled in a service learning course, and has two elements: 1) Learning Circles, which involve cultural exchange and one-on-one learning opportunities, and; 2) Advocacy, which involves collaborative efforts to mobilize community resources related to health, housing, employment, education, and legal issues.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25: Depression/Anxiety symptoms	Overall Distress Scale obtained as mean of all 25 items, range is 1-4 Depression symptom subscale is mean of 15 items (11-25), range is 1-4 Anxiety symptom subscale is mean of 10 items (1-10), range is 1-4 Higher scores indicate more depression/anxiety symptoms (worse outcome)	14 months
PTSD Symptom Checklist (Civilian Version)	Overall Symptom Severity is total of all 17 items; range is 17-85; higher score indicates more PTSD symptoms (worse outcome)	14 months
Abbreviated Hispanic Stress Inventory Scale - Culturally-Specific Distress	Overall Stress is mean of 25 items; range is 0-3; higher score indicates more distress/stress (worse outcome)	14 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Multi-Sector Social Support Inventory	Three subscales, each with 7 parallel items: Family Social Support, Ethnic Group Social Support, Non-Ethnic Community Social Support; each subscale is calculated as the mean of the relevant 7 items; range 0-4; higher scores indicate more social support (better outcome)	14 months
Satisfaction with Resources Scale	Mean of 12 items assessing satisfaction with resources in different life areas; range 0-6; higher score indicates greater satisfaction (better outcome)	14 months
Difficulty Accessing Resources Scale	Mean of 12 items assessing difficulty accessing resources in different life areas; range 1-4; higher score indicates more difficulty (worse outcome)	14 months
World Health Organization Quality of Life assessment	Total of 26 items; range 26-130; higher score indicates better quality of life (better outcome)	14 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of New Mexico
• Collaborators: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD); National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jessica R Goodkind, PhD, University of New Mexico

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 13, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): February 15, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): February 15, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 12, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 22, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): April 24, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 18, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 17, 2022
• Last Verified: May 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: mental health; pilot study; immigrant; within-group longitudinal design
• Other Study ID Numbers: 22217; U54MD004811 (NIH)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No