Socio-Cultural Stress Profiles, Stress Responses, and Academic and Health Outcomes in Mexican American Adolescents

Co-funded with the JPB Foundation

Human development scholar Su Yeong Kim and epidemiologist Deborah Parra-Medina will analyze a community sample of Mexican-origin adolescents in immigrant families to measure the extent to which socio-cultural stressors (such as economic stress, discrimination and foreigner stress, and language brokering experiences) influence physiological and behavioral stress mechanisms. They will examine the longitudinal influence of these socio-cultural stressors on physiological and behavioral stress responses, and academic and health outcomes of adolescents in Mexican immigrant families. They will also examine the conditions under which socio-cultural profiles can function as sources of both risk and protection for adolescents.