Do Immigrants Have Higher Risk Factors for Depression Than Non-Immigrants?

Do Immigrants Have Higher Risk Factors for Depression Than Non-Immigrants?
Billy
Bentley University
SO252
Professor Doane
3/25/2019
Globalization has made it easy for people to move from one country to the other. United States has 40 million immigrants and 35 million children who have immigrant parents. One research shows that 24% of the USA population is comprised of immigrants (Filion, Fenelon & Boudreaux, 2018). Therefore, considering the population of immigrant in U.S., it is crucial to understand and hopefully improve immigrant’s mental health issues. Most immigrants experience challenging post-migration issues, such as separation from family, linguistics, cultural barriers and in some cases unwelcoming environments. These factors in most cases exacerbate the existing unstable mentality of immigration, which already put them in a position that are vulnerable to mental disorders. It is indeed evident that immigrants have many risk factors for developing depression as compared to non-immigrants. Immigrants have more risk factors of suffering from depression than non-immigrants due to their prior traumatic experiences, age, employment status, language proficiency, nationality issues, education socioeconomic status, and discriminations.
Age is one of the determinant risk factors for developing depression among immigrants. Children that move to the USA at a young age are more likely to develop depression than adult immigrants. Additionally, English proficiency is also a risk factor that many immigrants have, ultimately resulting in depression and other mental health issues. People that move to United States without English proficiency have major challenges communicating. This is a significant problem especially if they do not have translators or friends that can help them to improve this setback. Some immigrants also experience traumatic events prior to their migration as refugees after experiencing various traumatic events in their home countries such as war or drought. These events cause trauma and increase the probability of these individuals developing depression and other mental disorders. Racial discrimination is one of the greatest risk factors for immigrants to develop depression. A study by Takeuchi (2016) discovered that immigrants from Africa and Asia are more likely to be discriminated against in the USA.
Traumatic events experienced before immigrating can contribute to depression. Occurrences such as political instability, wars, natural calamities and drought in the immigrant’s home countries increase their risk of developing depression. Whenever there are traumatic or disastrous events, some people with the financial ability seek asylum in other nations to get stability and peace. Despite leaving their home countries, traumatic occurrences remain with them and cause psychological stress. In a study conducted in Oslo, it was discovered that migrant women from most Middle East countries such as Turkey and Iran experienced many cases of depression (Takeuchi, 2016). The research signifies the comparison between old and new methods then adopts the latter with more accuracy and trustworthy results. The author find high distress scores among women from the Middle East can be explained by the constant wars in those nations. Most people move to other nations for peace, but the psychological trauma remains with them. Another research by Takeuchi et al. (2007) discovered that many refugees coming into the nation are at a higher risk of developing depression as compared to other immigrants coming to the USA for work and other reasons. The data were derived from the national Latino and Asian American studies. The limitation of this research is its population. With more variety of the immigrant, a more holistic results for all immigrants can be derived instead of few ethnicity groups. Many of them suffer from losing loved ones to traumatic experiences with war and thus adds the psychological stress. These individuals are at risk of suffering depression or other mental disorders. Non-immigrants are at less risk of acquiring depression due to traumatic events such as war since United States has experienced peace for a long time, and despite many issues affecting the nation, there was no war or political instability. These kinds of traumatic experiences are generally uncommon for non-immigrants and even though non-immigrants are at risk of depression due to traumatic events such as accidents, it is apparent immigrants with these experiences are more prone to develop depression.
Problems in communication experienced in the host country may result in depression. Proficiency in the host nation’s language promotes the acculturation process among immigrants and the opposite applies as well with several negative outcomes, including depression. Immigrants that lack proficiency in the language of the host nation experiences significant acculturative stress. These individuals have challenges communicating with other members of the community, causing psychological stress. Young immigrants that are not proficient with the language of the host nation experience discrimination, especially at schools. Other children may make fun of the young immigrants and isolating them. Isolation in schools places these students at risk of depression. Immigrants sometimes face communication issues because of language and cultural differences (Kirmayer et al., 2011). For example, among immigrants from Turkey living in Germany, proficiency in German may have an inverse correlation to symptoms of depression. The lack of proficiency in the language of the host nation is a great risk factor for many immigrants. Non -immigrants are not at risk of depression because of language proficiency since they understand their country’s languages. Having been born and growing up in their respective nations, non-immigrants do not experience any challenge in communicating with each other. This reduces their risk of depression as compared to immigrants who struggle to understand the languages of their host nations.
Unemployment among immigrants is associated with depression and other mental illnesses. Economically, inactive or student immigrants experience high levels of psychological stress that places them at more risk of depression than non-immigrants. Among employed immigrants, the odds of depression and other mental conditions are higher among the skilled and unskilled workers than among the professionals. Various factors result in psychological stress among immigrants that are employed including job dissatisfaction, discrimination worse living conditions and less healthy lifestyles (Hollander, 2013). The study by used Hollander had a cross-sectional design, however, the research did not examine the risk of mental conditions between immingrants and non-immigrants. There is a high risk of hospitalization as a result of unemployment among the immigrants. Additionally, Immigrants experience a lot of challenges at work including cultural tensions with non-immigrants. It is vivid that immigrants are brought up in different nations with different cultures. Post-immigration stresses may cause cultural confusion, isolation, racism, stress of employment and financial hardships among other issues (Bhugra & Becker, 2005).
Besides, the immigrants in some cases experience discrimination and lack of respect at their places of work. This causes conflicts at the workplace which may lead to stress among immigrants and place them at risk of depression. Non-immigrants that are unemployed, just like the immigrants, have a high risk of depression. Unemployment is associated with financial struggles and personal dissatisfaction. All these may result in stress and risk of depression among other mental health conditions. Non-immigrants that are employed unlike the employed immigrants have a lower risk of depression. Employed non-immigrants do not experience cultural tension with other employees or any other form of discrimination. It is uncommon in the United States to hear a native complain of experiencing discrimination or lack of respect for being a Native American, except African Americans always have cases of discrimination and lack of respect for being black.
The world region of origin of an immigrant determines their risk of depression. Different studies have been carried out to determine the prevalence of depression among immigrants (Liddell et al., 2013). Immigrants from countries which are exposed to traumatic events are more likely to experience mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. In Amsterdam, different groups of immigrants had different prevalence of depression including 18.7% for Turkish immigrants, 1.2% for Surinamese immigrants and 9.8% for Moroccan immigrants (de Wit et al., 2008). In Germany, Vietnamese immigrants experienced a higher prevalence of depression as compared to Polish immigrants. The study by Cheung & Nguyen (2017) confirmed that the nation of origin of an immigrant determines their risk of depression. For examples, immigrants from Vietnamese and Pakistani have a high prevalence of depression. This does not only apply to immigrants but also the non-immigrants living in these nations. Depression is a significant issue facing people in Pakistan. Pakistan non-immigrants experience a high risk of depression similar to Pakistani that have migrated to other nations. Depression levels in the USA are not as high as other nations such as Vietnam. As a result, United States’ natives have a low risk of developing depression. Similarly, USA citizens that immigrate to other nations such as Germany still have a low risk of depression. This implies that one’s nationality determines the risk of depression in a significant way.
The behaivor and attitude of the host society towards immigrants affects their mental health in a great way. In effect, negative feelings about being an immigrant is a determinant of psychological stress and a risk factor of depression. Immigrants that are prone to social discrimination in their host nations experience psychological stress and risk of depression. Most immigrants end up having homesick and the need to go back to their country’s causing stress. Young immigrants are at high risk if social discrimination in schools for l...