Protocol of the study: Multilevel community-based mental health intervention to address structural inequities and adverse disparate consequences of COVID-19 pandemic on Latinx Immigrants and African refugees

Abstract

The NIMH-funded Multilevel Community-Based Mental Health Intervention to Address Structural Inequities and Adverse Disparate Consequences of COVID-19 Pandemic on Latinx Immigrants and African Refugees study aims to advance the science of multilevel interventions to reduce the disparate, adverse mental health, behavioral, and socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic that are a result of complex interactions between underlying structural inequities and barriers to health care. The study tests three nested levels of intervention: 1) an efficacious 4-month advocacy and mutual learning model (Refugee and Immigrant Well-being Project, RIWP); 2) engagement with community-based organizations (CBOs); and 3) structural policy changes enacted in response to the pandemic. This community-based participatory research (CBPR) study builds on long-standing collaboration with five CBOs. By including 240 Latinx immigrants and 60 African refugees recruited from CBO partners who are randomly assigned to treatment-as-usual CBO involvement or the RIWP intervention and a comparison group comprised of a random sample of 300 Latinx immigrants, this mixed methods longitudinal waitlist control group design study with seven time points over 36 months tests the effectiveness of the RIWP intervention and engagement with CBOs to reduce psychological distress, daily stressors, and economic precarity and increase protective factors (social support, access to resources, English proficiency, cultural connectedness). The study also tests the ability of the RIWP intervention and engagement with CBOs to increase access to the direct benefits of structural interventions. This paper reports on the theoretical basis, design, qualitative and quantitative analysis plan, and power for the study.