Interracial Depressive Epidemiology in the Southwest

This report is a replication of a recent study dealing with interracial depressive symptomatology in the South. The present study analyzes the depression characteristics of Mexican-American and black females living in a Southwestern city (N = 514) and essentially validates the earlier findings from the South after a period of rapid social change. When people become aware of better economic opportunities, the young, the old, the under- and uneducated, and the unemployed express more depressive symptoms when they realize there are some structural barriers to a better way of life. Marital status was not a good depression predictor among the poor who were studied, but social alienation helped predict personal depression in one out of every seven Mexican Americans.