Latine Substance Use, Bilingualism, Education, and Mental Health

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering substance use statistics, language brokering, educational history, minority stress, and culturally relevant mental health interventions for Latine populations.

Binge Alcohol Use (Comparison)

A behavior that is more common among Hispanic people than among Asian people aged $12$ or older.

Hazardous Drinking

The practice of engaging in risky and heavy drinking at consistently high rates, which is more common in Hispanic adults compared to non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic Blacks.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)

Negative experiences occurring before the age of $18$, categorized into abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction, which impact later substance use and mental health.

Language brokering

The practice where children of immigrants, often starting at age $8$, interpret and translate for parents or relatives; it is most commonly performed by the oldest female child in high familismo contexts.

Bilingual

The ability to speak two languages, often identified via self-report, language fluency, and language exposure.

Executive functioning

A set of cognitive tasks including planning, cognitive flexibility, self-control, and problem-solving, on which bilingual individuals tend to perform better than monolinguals.

Tip of the tongue phenomenon

A word retrieval challenge where bilinguals experience slower connections while translating a concept into a word, leading to worse performance on verbal fluency tasks.

Mendez v. Westminster

A landmark $1947$ legal case that struck down racial and language-based educational segregation affecting Latine students in the U.S.

Head Start

A federally-funded early childhood education program established in the $1960s$ to decrease poverty by providing education, health, and nutrition services to low-income families.

Respeto

A Latine community value signifying respect, which aligns with early childhood education programs oriented toward education and connectedness.

Muxe

People in Oaxaca, Mexico, who are born male but do not conform to a binary gender identity, representing how gender diversity can be culturally affirmed.

Minority Stress Theory

A theory by Meyer ($2003$) stating that sexual and gender minoritized people experience chronic stress from distal and proximal stressors that harm mental and physical health.

Distal stressors

External minority stressors such as prejudice, discrimination, and violence.

Proximal stressors

Internal minority stressors such as expecting rejection, internalized stigma, and concealing one's identity.

Intersectionality

A framework for understanding how overlapping social and political identities (e.g., race, gender, sexuality) interact to create unique experiences of discrimination or privilege.

Latino immigrant paradox

A finding where Latino immigrants typically report lower rates of mood, anxiety, and substance disorders compared to Latinos born in the U.S.

Family Navigation Interventions

Programs that pair patients with a navigator to remove structural barriers and increase access to care through advocacy and instrumental support.

Psychosis

A cluster of symptoms involving disruptions to thoughts and perceptions resulting in a disconnection from reality.

Positive symptoms

Psychotic symptoms that include hallucinations and delusions.

Social Defeat Hypothesis

The theory that cumulative stress and social exclusion or "othering" increases mesolimbic dopamine activity, potentially contributing to psychosis.

Psychosis Literacy

The level of health knowledge regarding psychotic symptoms; it is often lower among Latine individuals with first-episode psychosis.

La Clave

A Spanish language program based on Social Cognitive Theory designed to increase psychosis literacy and help-seeking confidence.

Gaining Access and Treatment Equity (GATE) Model

A model used to identify perceived needs, internal barriers, structural barriers, and clinical/procedural barriers in mental health help-seeking.

Cultural competence

A therapist's ability to achieve cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, and cultural skills to effectively engage diverse clientele.

Cultural humility

A lifelong commitment to self-evaluation and redressing power imbalances in the patient-physician dynamic.

Cultural adaptations

The systematic modification of existing empirically-supported treatments to make them more culturally relevant while preserving core mechanisms of effectiveness.

Culturally centered interventions

The development of entirely new interventions that conceptualize symptoms and treatments from culturally relevant perspectives, such as incorporating idioms of distress.

Idioms of distress

Culturally specific ways of expressing psychological suffering or symptoms.