Browsing by Author "Gorman, Bridget K"

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    Acculturation, Social Support and Suicidal Ideation among Asian immigrants in the United States
    (2020-10-27) Kim, Min Ju; Gorman, Bridget K
    This study examines suicidal ideation among Asian immigrant adults in the United States, with consideration of the roles of acculturation and social support. Using the 2002-2003 National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), I conduct latent class analysis with measures of U.S. cultural orientation and Asian ethnic affiliation to create a multidimensional construct of acculturation. Three acculturation groups are identified (assimilated, integrated, separated) that show different associations with suicidal ideation. Then I analyze how the association between acculturation status and suicidal ideation is moderated by social support, distinguishing between perceived versus received support. Findings reveal that the buffering role of social support is gender-specific, with perceived support from friends reducing the risk of suicidal ideation only among assimilated women. Implications for future research include further application of acculturation as a multidimensional construct to various health outcomes and behavior as well as to other immigrant subgroups. Public health intervention efforts aimed at preventing suicide should endeavor to promote perceptions of an available social support system among immigrants, and aid in establishing sources of support outside the family particularly for immigrant women.
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    Cumulative Inequality and Race/Ethnic Disparities in Low Birthweight: Differences by Early Life SES
    (2015-04-15) Freeman Cenegy, Laura; Kimbro, Rachel T; Gorman, Bridget K; Bratter, Jenifer
    The current study applies Cumulative Inequality theory to investigate whether differences in black, white, and Hispanics mothers’ early life socioeconomic status (SES) account for disparities in infants’ risk of low birthweight (LBW). This study uses three-generation linked data that come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (1979-1995) and the NLSY Young Adult sample (1994-2010) and contain information on the mothers and grandmothers of 2,332 singleton infants. Controlling for mothers’ health and adult SES, I assess the unique association between childhood low SES, in terms of both cumulative economic hardship (i.e., household poverty status from ages 0 to 14) and social status (i.e., grandmothers’ education and marital status), and LBW probability. I also examine differences in LBW probability between black, white, and Hispanic women from similar childhood socioeconomic backgrounds. Overall, results indicate that childhood socioeconomic factors do not account for race/ethnic disparities in LBW. Rather, childhood low SES increases the probability of LBW for whites but is not significantly predictive of LBW for blacks or Hispanics. In fact, pairwise comparisons indicate the greatest LBW disparities exist between black and white women who experienced the least socioeconomic disadvantage during early life.
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    Who Cares? The Mental Health of Older Adults Serving as Caregivers
    (2015-04-06) Fahey, Lynn; Gorman, Bridget K; Denney, Justin T; Cech, Erin A
    Drawing on data from the 2010-2011 wave of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), this study explores caregiving and mental health among older adults using stress process as a theoretical framework. I began with descriptive analyses in order to document the characteristics of older caregivers, including differences by gender. Following, I used regression models to investigate how mental strain relates to caregiving characteristics (e.g., frequency of caregiving, reason that care is provided) among older adult caregivers, and additionally, whether these relationships vary by gender. Descriptive results show that in general, older caregivers tend to be women, retired, relatively well networked, and they care for someone other than a spouse, parent, or child/grandchild. Additionally, the descriptive analyses revealed that women report more mental strain and provide more hours of care per week, while men are more educated and make up a significantly larger percentage of caregivers who are married or cohabiting. Multivariate regression results indicated that among caregivers, a number of aspects of the caregiver relationship (i.e., hours of care provided, the relationship to the person being cared for) are related to emotional strain, and that a greater number of aspects of the caregiving relationship predicted emotional strain among men as compared to women. The implications of these findings for both gender and caregiving among older populations are discussed.