Do Acculturation Gaps Between Latino Parents And Adolescents Influence Family Connection And Depression

The Latino population experiences significant health disparities including elevated depression and disproportionate rates of substance use. One factor that belies these outcomes is acculturation discrepancies within families. The gap distress model posits that cultural gaps between parents and adolescents can lead to compromised family functioning as well as depression and substance use. However, significant limitations within the research obscure findings including the measurement of acculturation and the statistical modeling of acculturative gaps. The current study addresses these issues by establishing measurement invariance between parents and adolescents before analyzing acculturation utilizing polynomial regressions. Participants were recruited for a community trial of a positive youth development intervention in the Mid-Atlantic. Findings confirmed a two-factor solution: English language acculturation and Spanish language acculturation. Results did not support hypotheses of the acculturation gap between parents and adolescents impacting family connection or depression. However, exploratory analyses suggested that extreme scores of parent's English language acculturation negatively impact adolescent depression and family connection. These findings underscore the importance of future measurement development and methodologies that determine invariance between parents and adolescents in order to understand the impact of acculturation gaps on adolescent outcomes.