CORRECTION: More mental health woes for immigrant kids

[Corrects story posted Dec 14, 2006. Previous version had been incompletely edited.]

By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Immigrants from Asia are less apt to suffer anxiety, depression and other mental health woes than are American-born Asians and other native-born Americans, according to a survey of Asian Americans living in the US.

However, children and grandchildren of immigrants from Asian countries may be more likely than their parents to suffer mental health disorders, researchers warn.

The survey also hints that Asian-American immigrant women are far less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, substance abuse or psychiatric disorder in their lifetime than are US-born women.

Immigrant men with a good command of the English language are also less likely to have mental health problems than were those who struggle with the English language or American-born men.

The findings come from interviews with nearly 2,100 native-born or immigrant Asian Americans aged 18 years or older. Participants included 600 Chinese, 520 Vietnamese, 508 Filipinos and 467 other Asians including Japanese, Koreans and Asian Indians. The results appear in the early online edition of the January 2007 American Journal of Public Health.

"Compared to all Americans, Asian Americans had lower lifetime rates of any disorder," Dr. David Takeuchi, a sociologist and University of Washington social work professor and lead author of the study said in a statement.

"Roughly 48 percent of Americans will have some kind of a lifetime disorder. In our study, less than one in four Asian-American immigrants will have a disorder," he added.

"This may reflect the prevalence of mental disorders in different countries of origin," Takeuchi noted in comments to Reuters Health. "For example, the rates of mental disorders in Asian countries are dramatically lower than found in the US. The US has the highest prevalence of mental disorders of any country."

However, children and grandchildren of Asian immigrants may be at higher risk for suffering mental health problems than their parents, Takeuchi warned, noting that, in the current study, second-generation Asian women were more at risk than their first-generation counterparts for depression, anxiety and any psychiatric illness.

"Immigrants w ho come as young children and adolescents are more at risk for mental disorders," he said. "Immigrant children have similar social opportunities as US-born children, but they also have the same risk for different problems, especially substance use and abuse."

"Since US-born individuals are more likely to be at risk for mental disorders, it seems reasonable to suggest that subsequent generations of Asian, Black, and Latino immigrants will conform to this same risk," Takeuchi said.

SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, January 2007.