Migration and Mental Health: An Empirical Test of Depression Risk Factors among Immigrant Mexican Women

Abstract

Empirical research in the field of migration and mental health is rare and its recent appearance follows decades of inconsistent reports in the research literature about the risks posed by numerous precipitating and predisposing factors. This article has two goals: to summarize critically selected issues and methodological problems regarding mental health implications of migration-adaptation, and, to test empirically hypotheses derived from the Fabrega Migration Adaptation Model to determine whether they have predictive value for depressive symptomatology in a cross sectional sample of immigrant Mexican women in San Diego County. Findings from bivariate analyses indicate most Model factors were significantly related to depressive symptoms. Multivariate analyses identified demographic factors (education-income), perceived economic opportunity, perceived distance between the two centers involved in the migration, and loss of interpersonal ties in Mexico as the most parsimonious subset of depression predictors within the Model. Implications are discussed.