Immigrant and U.S.-born migrant farmworkers: Dual paths to discrimination-related health outcomes

Research with immigrant Latino populations often point to findings that immigrants tend to evidence better health outcomes than nonimmigrants. When exploring differences based on nativity, comparisons often end with just comparing these two groups. Exploring these variables alone may oversimplify the shared and unique paths of risk and resilience between these groups. Experimental research shows that discrimination is often directed toward immigrants, but U.S.-born Latinos report more frequent exposure. We sought to address this by examining two distinct pathways by which discrimination leads to negative health. A sample of 240 Latino migrant farmworkers completed questionnaires regarding immigration-related fears, discrimination, physical and mental health, demographics, and other outcomes. While U.S.-born participants reported similar or worse outcomes across health measures, the pathways to these outcomes appeared to differ between the two groups, with immigration-related fears accounting for substantial portions of these health outcomes, especially in the dual paths with discrimination (p values < .05). Simply comparing Latino groups across U.S. nativity may paper over important differences in how they arrive at those health outcomes, including that immigration-related concerns may exacerbate exposure to and severity of discrimination, which in turn leads to negative health outcomes. On the other hand, discrimination itself may account for numerous negative health outcomes more directly for U.S.-born Latinos. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).