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. 2021 Jun 4;18(11):6065.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18116065.

Immigration and Gender as Social Determinants of Mental Health during the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Case of US Latina/os

Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga  1 , Melanie Sayuri Dominguez  2 , Sylvia Manzano  3
Affiliations

Immigration and Gender as Social Determinants of Mental Health during the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Case of US Latina/os

Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

While men and women make up a similar number of COVID-19 cases, and are equally likely to know someone who has become ill due to the virus, the gendered and systemic implications of immigration during public health emergencies among minority groups in the United States are empirically underexplored. Using the SOMOS COVID-19 Crisis National Latino Survey, we conduct a series of intersectional analyses to understand the extent to which personal experiences with COVID-19, gendered structural factors, and spillover effects of US immigration policies impact the mental health of US Latina/os during a public health emergency. The results show that among Latinas, knowing an undocumented immigrant and someone ill with COVID-19 increases the probability of reporting worse mental outcomes by 52 percent. Furthermore, being a woman increases the probability of reporting the highest level of mental health problems by 30 percent among Hispanic people who know someone with COVID-19 and an undocumented immigrant. These findings indicate that the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak among US Latinas and Latinos are entrenched in gendered and systemic inequalities.

Keywords: COVID-19; Latina/os; health inequities; immigration; intersectionality; mental health; pandemic; social determinants of health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Daily reported COVID-19 cases in the United States. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “New Cases by Day”.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Predicted probabilities of reporting no mental health issues (three-way interaction among gender, knowing someone with COVID-19, and knowing undocumented immigrant). Source: Authors’ analysis using the SOMOS COVID-19 Crisis National Latino Survey (2020).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Predicted probabilities of reporting the highest level of mental health issues (three-way interaction among gender, knowing someone with COVID-19, and knowing undocumented immigrant). Source: Authors’ analysis using the SOMOS COVID-19 Crisis National Latino Survey (2020).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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