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While adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are well-documented predictors of maladaptive behaviors in adulthood, including risky sexual behaviors (RSB), the influence of acculturation in this association remains unknown. Although Hispanics are a rapidly growing population in the United States and are disproportionately affected by adverse sexual health outcomes, there is a paucity of research examining the interplay of ACE, acculturation, and RSB in this population. We observed the ACE-RSB association and how this relationship varies across U.S. and Hispanic acculturation levels, in a sample of Hispanic young adults (n = 715). Data for this study were from Project RED, a longitudinal study of Hispanic health. We ran regression models to test associations between ACE (0, 1–3, 4+) and several RSB (e.g., early sexual initiation (≤14 years), condomless sex, lifetime sexual partners, and alcohol/drug use before intercourse), and assessed moderation by U.S./Hispanic acculturation. Compared with those without ACE, individuals with 4 + ACE had higher odds of early sexual initiation (AOR: 2.23), alcohol/drug use before last intercourse (AOR: 2.31), and condomless sex (AOR: 1.66), as well as a higher number of lifetime sexual partners (β: 0.60). For those reporting 4 + ACE, high U.S. acculturation was protective in the association between ACE and using alcohol/drugs before intercourse. Future research implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This research examines links between Mexican‐origin young adults' cultural values and sibling caregiving behaviors during adolescence and responsibility in young adulthood. Background: Responsibility is an important marker of young adulthood, and this skill may be transmitted to youth through familism values. Familism values may guide how youth engage in behaviors (e.g., sibling caregiving), which may help foster responsibility skills during young adulthood. Results: Using cultural ecological framework and cultural transmission model, we examined associations among familism values, sibling caregiving, and responsibility among 219 Mexican‐origin young adults. We tested a multigroup model with path analysis based on gender and found no gender differences. Family obligation and family referent were positively associated with sibling caregiving. Family support and family referent were positively associated with responsibility. Sibling caregiving was positively associated with responsibility. We found two significant indirect effects. Familism obligation and family referent values were positively associated with sibling caregiving, which in turn was positively associated with responsibility. Conclusion: Findings highlight how cultural values and sibling caregiving can be linked to responsibility during young adulthood. Implications: Sibling caregiving during youth may provide opportunities to build valuable skills in young adulthood. Cultural values may inform family behaviors and in turn young adulthood responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research on political participation suggests that parental resources strongly predict participation. Other research indicates that salient political events can push individuals to participate. I offer a novel explanation of how mundane household experiences translate to political engagement, even in settings where low participation levels are typically found, such as immigrant communities. I hypothesize that experiences requiring children of Latinx immigrants to take on "adult" responsibilities provide an environment where children learn the skills needed to overcome the costs associated with participation. I test this hypothesis using three datasets: a survey of Latinx students, a representative survey of young adults, and a 10-year longitudinal study. The analyses demonstrate that Latinx children of immigrants taking on adult responsibilities exhibit higher levels of political activity compared with those who do not. These findings provide new insights into how the cycle of generational political inequality is overcome in unexpected ways and places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We used the model of critical consciousness (CC; Freire, 1973) to examine college persistence in a sample of Hispanic Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) college students in contrast to Hispanic and non-Hispanic White U.S. citizens. To do this, we looked to social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) to clarify the development of CC and its association with college persistence in students facing marginalization due to immigration status and racial/ethnic identity.Method: The sample consisted of 368 undergraduate college students, including 89 Hispanic DACA recipients, 88 Hispanics with U.S. citizenship, and 191 non-Hispanic Whites with U.S. citizenship. Students completed scales on intent to persist in college, political self-efficacy, political outcome expectations, critical reflection, critical action, and supports and barriers for critical action.Results: The data were examined using multigroup structural equation modeling; goodness of fit indices suggested good model fit for all groups. Tests of structural invariance revealed that 7 relational paths were equal across student groups, while race/ethnicity and immigration status differentiated the strength of 7 paths.Conclusions: Our findings indicate that there are differences in how Hispanic DACA students experience CC in relation to support for their political advocacy and activism. Findings also highlight that political outcome expectations predicted higher intent to persist in college for all students, including Hispanic DACA students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: For years, national US surveys have found a lower prevalence of cigarette smoking among non-Hispanic (NH) black adolescents and young adults than their NH white counterparts while finding either similar or higher prevalence in NH blacks among older adults. We present results from four US surveys, including one supplemented by cotinine data, to determine if a race-gender-age crossover effect exists between NH black and NH white current cigarette smokers.Methods: We present NH black and NH white current cigarette smoking estimates in the National Youth Tobacco Survey (2004-2013), National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2002-2013), National Health Interview Survey (2001-2013), and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2001-2012).Results: All surveys consistently found that NH black females aged 12-25 years had a lower smoking prevalence than NH white females of the same age while NH black males aged 26 years or older had a higher smoking prevalence than NH white males of the same age. Results were inconsistent between surveys for current smoking estimates for males 12-25 years and females aged 26 years or older.Conclusion: Our results are inconclusive in consistently detecting the existence of a race-gender-age crossover effect for current cigarette smoking between NH blacks and NH whites. National birth cohort studies are better suited to detect a race-gender-age crossover effect in smoking prevalence between these two racial groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents findings from a narrative study conducted to address young women's experiences of relational aggression and violence in their female peer relationships. Few studies have examined the nature of relational aggression among urban African American and Latina young women. Moreover, when young urban women have been studied, prior research has predominantly focused on physical aggression, often excluding nonphysical forms of aggression that may precipitate violence. Using the listening guide method, this narrative analysis of 19 young African American and Latina women (18-21 years) living in New York City will demonstrate young urban women's experiences of relational aggression and violence, and the social and emotional impact of these experiences in their everyday lives. Findings reveal that young women use different forms of relational aggression, and these forms of relational aggression provoke violence between female peers. Listening to young women's voices as they talk about their experiences of relational aggression in their female peer relationships provides rich contextual information about the underlying social and cultural meanings of the various forms of aggressive behaviors for young women living and surviving in urban communities. Implications for clinical social work practice and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We quantify how social detachment (measured as neither working nor attending school) of low-income African-American and Latino young adults relates to their teen neighborhood conditions. Data come from retrospective surveys of Denver Housing Authority (DHA) households. Because DHA household allocation mimics quasirandom assignment to neighborhoods throughout Denver County, this program represents a natural experiment for overcoming geographic selection bias. Our multilevel, mixed-effects logistic analyses found significant relationships between neighborhood safety and population composition and odds of social detachment of low-income, minority young adults that can be interpreted as causal effects. The strength of these relationships was often contingent on gender and ethnicity, however. We draw conclusions for macroeconomic, income-support, subsidized housing and community development policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This special issue introduces a range of articles that analyze patterns of incorporation among Latinos living in the United States. We discuss the importance of race and institutionalized discrimination across various social institutions and through legislation and policies that promote and/or blunt Latino incorporation. Building on the findings of the studies in this special issue, this introduction considers how race and racialization shape the lives of Latino youth and adults through directives and policies emerging from a range of institutions—from the U.S. Census Bureau to State Courts, and state and federal legislative bodies. Mediating incorporation is legislation such as the Affordable Care Act and administrative changes such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which, while promoting inclusion of Latino populations into the U.S. body-politic, also render some Latinos part of a class of people that are subjugated based on their origins. We conclude this introductory article with an assessment of how this structural discrimination results in various forms of incorporation that include marginalized belonging, blocked mobility, and both the invisibility and hypervisibility of Latinos in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Introduction: Hispanic emerging adults appear to be at especially high risk for substance use but little is known about their risk and protective factors. A crucial next step to reducing substance use among this priority population may involve understanding how transition-to-adulthood themes are associated with substance use. Intervention and prevention programs could also benefit from information about which if any specific transitions undergone in emerging adulthood are associated with substance use. Methods: Hispanic emerging adults (aged 18 to 24) completed surveys indicating their identification with transition-to-adulthood themes, role transitions in the past year, and use of alcohol and marijuana. Logistic regression models were used to examine the associations between transition-to-adulthood themes and past-month binge drinking and marijuana use, controlling for age and gender. Separate logistic regression models explored the association between each individual role transition and past-month binge drinking and marijuana use, controlling for age and gender and using a Bonferonni correction. Results: Among the participants (n =1,390), 41% were male, the average age was 21, 24% reported past-month marijuana use and 34% reported past-month binge drinking. Participants who felt emerging adulthood was a time of focusing on others were less likely to report marijuana use and binge drinking. Among the 24 transitions, five were significantly associated with past-month marijuana use and 10 were significantly associated with past-month binge drinking. Conclusion: Findings suggest transition-to-adulthood themes as well as specific changes experienced by emerging adults are meaningful for Hispanics and should be explored in prevention and intervention programs in the future. Future research should determine what specific mechanisms are making these transitional processes risk factors for substance use. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Introduction: A growing body of research documents racial/ethnic disparities in U.S. cigarette smoking. To date, however, few studies have examined the influence of nativity, in addition to race/ethnicity, on current and ever use of cigarettes as well as other tobacco products among young adults. Here, racial/ethnic and nativity disparities in tobacco use and self-identified smoking status are documented for U.S. women and men aged 18–34, both unadjusted and adjusted for socioeconomic status. Methods: The Legacy Young Adult Cohort Study (N = 3,696) was used to examine gender-specific tobacco use and smoking status differences among foreign-born Hispanics, U.S.-born Hispanics, U.S.-born non-Hispanic Blacks, and U.S.-born non-Hispanic Whites. Prevalence estimates and multivariable models of ever tobacco use, current tobacco use, and self-identified smoking status were calculated. Results: U.S.-born Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites exhibit the highest levels of ever and current use across a range of tobacco products, whereas foreign-born Hispanics, particularly women, exhibit the lowest ever and current use of most products and are least likely to describe themselves as smokers. Controlling for socioeconomic covariates, current tobacco use is generally lower for most minority groups relative to Whites. Social or occasional smoking, however, is higher among U.S.-born Hispanics and Blacks. Conclusions: The high level of tobacco use among U.S.-born young adults foreshadows substantial tobacco-related morbidity and mortality in the coming decades. Foreign-born Hispanic young adults, particularly women, exhibit the lowest levels of tobacco use. Future studies of tobacco use must differentiate racial/ethnic groups by nativity to better understand patterns of tobacco use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the effectiveness of an intervention, that regards HIV infection prevention, on unprotected vaginal sex among teenage Latino mothers and fathers and its impact on parental protectiveness in Los Angeles County, California. The respondents received a didactic HIV prevention education program for one and 1/2 hour. The results show that the intervention was effective in lessening the proportion of unprotected sexual activity for males and females. It notes that the role of male parental protectiveness can improve the intervention's effectivity for his partner. The authors suggest that a strengths-based perspective with focus on relationships and culturally tailored strategies must be used when working with HIV prevention programs among teen parents.

Very little research exists on self-harm in Hispanic populations, although there is a strong literature that addresses suicidality in Hispanics. This study compares self-reported rates of self-harm in 255 non-Hispanic White (NHW) and 187 Hispanic (predominantly Mexican American) undergraduate students. Results indicated that self-harm is relatively common, with 31% of the sample reporting some history of self-harm. Rates and specific types of self-harm did not significantly differ between the NHW and Hispanic groups. A global measure of Mexican American acculturation was not related to reports of self-harm. However, a more specific scale assessing Mexican orientation was significantly and negatively related to self-harm for Hispanic men, suggesting that Mexican orientation may be a protective factor with regard to self-harm for men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the postsecondary pathways of Latino language-minority young adults in the United States. Using data from the Texas Higher Education Opportunity Project (THEOP) and controlling on background characteristics as well as high-school academic achievement, this study explores the social and linguistic integration of immigrant and native-born Latino linguistic-minority adolescents. Results suggest that home-language use positively predicts postsecondary involvement for Latino language-minority males. Alternately, social integration, either via extracurricular involvement or religious participation, predicts Latina girls' postsecondary participation, with variation in the patterns depending on girls' immigrant generational status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]