Mental Health of Newcomer Refugee and Immigrant Youth During COVID-19
Date
2022
Authors
Nakhaie, Reza
Ramos, Howard
Vosoughi, Dara
Baghdadi, Obada
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Canadian Ethnic Studies Association
Abstract
In this paper, we examine how the degree of newcomer youth assimilation and acculturation, food insecurity, resilience, and social connections affect the mental health of recent refugee and immigrant youth in a mid-sized city during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data for this study are based on a sample of newcomers, mostly refugees, surveyed between July and November 2020. Indicators of mental health problems include the frequency in which respondents felt sad, stressed, confused, isolated, helpless, nervous, hopeless, or depressed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Multivariate analysis points to the importance of resiliency and family density (i.e., number of siblings) for decreasing mental health problems, while food insecurity and length of residency in Canada increased them. Among these, food insecurity followed by resiliency were the strongest predictors of refugee and immigrant youth’s mental health.
Description
This article comes from a study of newcomer refugee and immigrant youth's experiences with COVID-19, funded by the Child and Youth Refugee Research Coalition (CYRRC) in 2020. This study was done in partnership with the YMCA of Western Ontario.
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Citation
Nakhaie, R., Ramos, H., Vosoughi, D., & Baghdadi, O. (2022). Mental Health of Newcomer Refugee and Immigrant Youth During COVID-19. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 54(1), 1-28.