Aims: To examine the relationship between mental health problems and parental immigrant status in a representative sample of US adolescents aged 12-17. Method: We analyzed the US 2007 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) restricted to 32,849 adolescents aged 12-17. Parents or guardians in random-digit-dial sampled households were interviewed by telephone from April 2007 through July 2008 about one of their children, selected at random. Five mental health measures were used: prior medical diagnoses of (a) depression, (b) anxiety, and (c) behavioral problems; parental reports of the adolescent (d) feeling inferior/worthless, and (e) episodes of being withdrawal from others. Logistic regression models were employed to examine the relationship between mental health problems and parental immigrant status. Results: Overall, 19.4% of adolescents had at least one immigrant parent. After adjusting for sociodemographic factors, all adolescents with immigrant parents have decreased odds of behavioral problems (OR 0.43, p<.000), but no significant differences in the odds of depression, anxiety, worthlessness, and withdrawal compared to adolescents with US-born parents. Similarly, White, Black, and Hispanic adolescents with immigrant parents had decreased odds of behavioral problems (OR 0.35, p<.000; OR 0.31, p<.01; and OR 0.24, p<.05, respectively) compared to their counterparts with US-born parents. Conclusion: Evaluation of psychological and mental health problems among adolescents in the United States should take parental immigrant status and other sociodemographic factors into account. © 2011 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Immigrant Depression Adolescent Mental health Racial Disparities Anxiety

anxiety immigrant Negro depression Caucasian race difference human controlled study priority journal mental disease United States school child ethnic difference teleconsultation Adolescent Hispanic male female Article behavior disorder major clinical study migration Child