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

Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga, Melanie Sayuri Dominguez and Sylvia Manzano
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Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga: School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182, USA
Melanie Sayuri Dominguez: Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
Sylvia Manzano: BSP Research, Agoura Hills, CA 91301, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-14

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; health inequities; mental health; pandemic; intersectionality; Latina/os; immigration; social determinants of health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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