Race Related Stress of Latino Elders: Implications for Quality of Life

There is a paucity of information to help guide mental health practitioners explore the ways that racism influences a client?s well being (Harrell, 2000). The stress caused by racism has been documented to affect the psychological well being of minorities (Harrell, 2000; Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999). The majority of the research involving race related stress has focused almost exclusively on African Americans. Despite the growing Latino population in the United States, there is substantially less research examining their perceived discriminatory experiences (Araujo & Borrell, 2006). Although the elderly subgroup is a population that has been largely ignored in the research with Latinos, it has been established that they are at a high risk for multiple psychological and physical ailments (Tran, Fitzpatrick, Berg, & Wright, 1996; Black, Markides, & Miller, 1998; Canabal & Quiles, 1995; Gonzalez, Haan, & Hinton, 2001; Harris, Eastman, Cowie, Flegal, & Eberhardt, 1999). This work investigated factors that impact the relationship between race related stress and quality of life of first generation immigrant Latino elders.