We examine relationships across two focal variables, being an immigrant and experiencing racial discrimination (an adverse childhood experience, or ACE), and the outcome of a mental or emotional health condition for adolescent children in the U.S. Using a nationally representative sample from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH; n = 16,040; 12–17 years old), we find that immigrant teens are 17 percent less likely than native-born teens to have a mental or emotional health condition and that teens who have experienced racial discrimination are almost twice as likely as teens who did not to have a mental or emotional health condition, net of other relationships. Adolescents with a mental or emotional health condition are more likely to be female, White, urban, living in an unsafe neighborhood, having a parent with less education, and coming from a household with a lower income. We find evidence for the healthy immigrant effect in terms of mental health for immigrant teens in the U.S., and also, we find a strong relationship between the ACE of experiencing racial discrimination and poor mental health of adolescents overall.
Bass et al. (Tue,) studied this question.