Young adults in a 20-year-long study shed light on what matters for mental health of ethnic diverse youth

 A study within the Journal of the American Academy of kid and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), reports on the young adult assessment of the now 20-year longitudinal Boricua Youth Study (BYS), an outsized cohort that brings much-needed insight into the event and psychological state of youngsters from a various ethnic background growing up in disadvantaged contexts.

The present article, with its companion report on the prevalence of conditions and associated factors, provides an update on the study's fourth wave, which follows-up two probability-based population samples of youngsters of Puerto Rican heritage. Unique to the study is its two-site design, which allows for comparison of one ethnos in two contexts: one during which a group is an ethnic group living during a disadvantaged area (South Bronx, NY); and another where though challenges are many, children don't get older is a part of an ethnic group (San Juan, Puerto Rico).

"The BYS provides a singular opportunity to know developmental processes relevant to young adults who aren't easily included in clinical, school, internet, or telephone-based studies," said lead author Cristiane Duarte, Ph.D., MPH, Ruane Professor at the Division of kid and Adolescent Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York. "By that specialize in an underserved ethnos (Puerto Ricans), whose risk for future psychiatric disorders has been well documented within the USA, we add relevant information to an upscale tradition of population-based longitudinal studies that have informed our knowledge of developmental psychopathology."

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Children are followed since the year 2000 when the first 2,491 participants were between the ages of 5 to 13 years old. Young adults were re-assessed on the average 11.3 years after the last study contact, with retention of quite 80 percent of the first sample. the present article presents the cohort composition during young adulthood because it pertains to survival, mobility, parental involvement, and other parameters that are crucial to the understanding of developmental psychopathology processes but aren't frequently captured by more selective studies.

Hoping to assist advance the sector, the paper also provides detailed descriptions of methods and measures used, plus strategies utilized to interact and retain a low-income ethnically diverse cohort. the most aim of the primary three waves of the study, initiated by Drs. Bird and Canino at the turn of the 21st century were to research development, specifically associated with antisocial behaviors at the 2 study sites.

Co-author Glorisa Canino, Ph.D., Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, said: "The study included the ascertainment of a good array of putative risk factors that would be associated with differences across contexts. After the completion of the primary three waves, the question remained on whether similar patterns observed in childhood would persist into late adolescence and early adulthood."

The risks threatening the positive development of Puerto Rican youth and other diverse racial/ethnic youth, living in disadvantaged contexts, are now likely being compounded by several relevant factors. These include the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underserved racial/ethnic minorities; a protracted economic depression; and a recent major natural disaster (Hurricane Maria) alongside the long-term experiences of discrimination and structural racism that have afflicted these same families for hundreds of years.

The BYS gathers data from childhood through young adulthood on areas like family relationships, cultural stress, and psychiatric disorders, with the addition of domains specific to late adolescence and young adulthood (e.g., sexual risk behaviors, substance use, and financial independence). As such, the study is poised to answer questions that are important to the lived experiences of this ethnos as they could pertain to psychological state and has the capacity to assess the role of context and gender in these associations.

"This study is distinctive and even more relevant today as we unpack the role of minority status within the development of Latinx youth," said co-author Margarita Alegria, Ph.D. Professor, Harvard University. "This represents a singular opportunity to spot assets and risks of Latinx youths' psychological state as they transition to emerging adults."

Of note, currently, Hector Bird, MD, study co-author states, "The retention of over 80 percent of a sample of youngsters, now young adults, seen quite ten years after the last encounter, has been remarkable. We sincerely hope that the present readers and people of years to return will enjoy the results of this work both in informing epidemiologic methodology also as from the implications of the findings for the psychological state of Puerto Rican and other ethnic groups."

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