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Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Immigrant Paradox in Substance Use

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Abstract

Using data from the National Longitudinal Studies of Adolescent Health, the present study examines self-reported substance use (cigarettes, tobacco, and marijuana) among youth from different immigration generations to determine the immigrant paradox in substance use for different racial and ethnic groups as well as factors contributing to the relationship between immigration and substance use. Results of data analysis indicate the immigrant paradox in substance use among non-Hispanic Whites, Asians, and Hispanics, but not among non-Hispanic Blacks. The study also shows that factors explaining the immigrant paradox in substance use vary with racial and ethnic groups, but English use at home, friends’ cigarette and marijuana use appear to be the most important mediating factors. Findings from the study suggest that effective interventions in youth substance use require an understanding of adaptation patterns in different racial and ethnic groups, so that factors associated with adaptation problems experienced by particular groups will be appropriately addressed.

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Notes

  1. Due to a small number of students using marijuana (n = 2,461) and a relatively small number of student using tobacco (n = 4,549), a combination of students using either tobacco or marijuana provides a larger number of cases (n = 5,741) necessary for exploring generational differences in substance use in separate racial and ethnic subgroups.

  2. The program SPSS with complex sampling option lacks a multiple imputation procedure that can take into account sampling errors caused by the complex sampling design. STATA and MPLUS offer full-information maximum likelihood estimation accounting for the complex sampling design.

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Acknowledgments

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Hoan N. Bui

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Bui, H.N. Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Immigrant Paradox in Substance Use. J Immigrant Minority Health 15, 866–881 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-012-9670-y

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