The Harsh Impact of Alcohol on the Latino Community

While more Latinos have never had even one drink of alcohol than their white peers, more than 33% of these Latinos will have recurrent or persistent problems with alcohol compared, a higher rate than their white peers, according to a Salud America! Excessive consumption of alcohol rose 39% across all demographics in the same time frame, with Latina women being among the demographics with the largest increases in average consumption at 148%. Of past-year Latino American drinkers, 26% engaged in heavy drinking regularly (at least once a month). Communities from a variety of Central and South American countries have immigrated to the states over the years, bringing their unique traditions and culture.

Unfortunately, Latinos who struggle with severe alcohol issues are less likely than their White peers to seek they treatment they need, according to the NIAAA. Unfortunately, Latinos who choose to drink are more likely to consume higher volumes of alcohol than non-Hispanic Whites, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). “A one-year increase in alcohol consumption in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to cause 8,000 additional deaths from alcohol-related liver disease, 18,700 cases of liver failure, and 1,000 cases of liver cancer by 2040,” according to a press release from the Massachusetts General Hospital.

In this study Zemore (2007) reports that among all studies reviewed, there was a consistent association between higher acculturation and higher odds of drinking among women. Future research in this sample is needed to examine the mechanism by which acculturation leads to alcohol consumption among diverse Latinas in the U.S. One plausible explanation is the relationship of acculturative stress signs you’ve been roofied and alcohol use examined in other studies [32].

Alcohol Abuse Statistics For The Hispanic Community

Research from 2013 found that 71% to 87% of social workers reported working with people facing the condition. Another common trope of many treatment programs is “you can’t help people if you’re not helping yourself,” an idea that isn’t quite compatible with someone who, for example, may be supporting their family financially. Many Western approaches to treating substance use emphasize an individual approach to treatment.

However, our findings need to be replicated and more studies are needed with more diverse Hispanic samples (e.g., ages, nativity) and inclusion of other bicultural self-efficacy domains. Based on the interaction we found between acculturation and bicultural self-efficacy—future studies should continue to examine how other sociocultural processes may influence bicultural self-efficacy in relation to substance use behavior. Using PROCESS v3.2 for SPSS (Hayes, 2017), moderation analyses were conducted with 50,000 bootstraps to examine the extent to which potential moderating variables influenced the direction and/or strength of respective associations with alcohol use severity. All moderation analyses controlled for all variables in the HMR model that were not included in respective interaction terms.

Implement a screening process for substance use in a variety of healthcare settings

These subgroup differences in alcohol use among Latinos, in addition to the limited existing research on Latinos immigrating to the US from a variety of Latin American regions including Cuba, and South and Central American, underscores the need for such research. In sum, the link between acculturation and alcohol use among Hispanics is not well understood (Vaeth et al., 2012). However, as this field of research moves forward, continuing to use unidimensional measures of acculturation in alcohol research is problematic because it eliminates the possibility to investigate the association between the Hispanic orientation and alcohol use outcomes.

1. Although the rates of substance abuse among Hispanic Americans do not differ from those of the overall U.S. population, there is a gap between Hispanics and the rest of the population when it comes to substance abuse treatment.
2. Further, more research is needed to examine acculturation levels and potential mediators (e.g., acculturative stress) and at-risk drinking for Hispanic/Latina women.
3. Accordingly, the first aim of this study was to examine associations of acculturation orientations and domains of bicultural self-efficacy with alcohol use severity among Hispanic emerging adults.
4. Disseminating and implementing evidence-based practices and promising practices for mental disorders into the field.
5. “Cultural competence can mean [language], but significant portions of the Latinx community in the United States call English their first language.
6. This finding underscores the need for more multisite studies on acculturation and alcohol use.

“From 1992 through the present, Hispanic/Latino 8th graders have been roughly twice as likely to report binge drinking as non-Hispanic White 8th graders, and 3 times as likely as African American 8th graders,” according to a 2015 study. Increased drinking to cope with pandemic-related stressors, shifting alcohol policies, and disrupted treatment access are all possible contributing factors,” study authors wrote. It’s a common immigrant story – those who are born in this country are at greater risk for a series of bad health-related outcomes, compared with immigrants who were born elsewhere and moved here. Even as the medical community and society as a whole work to reimagine what treatment for substance use disorder looks like for the Latinx community, know that help is available and healing is possible. Below are three examples of interventions healthcare professionals may consider implementing to reduce barriers to care and improve treatment outcomes for the Latinx community facing SUD.

The long-term outcome of such a new generation of alcohol use prevention and treatment programs will reduce the prevalence of problematic alcohol use behavior which is the most pressing substance abuse problem confronting Latino immigrants nationwide. One of our moderation analysis indicated that gender did not moderate the association between acculturation orientations and alcohol use severity. One explanation for this null finding is that historically, men have reported higher rates for various alcohol use outcomes compared to women, but those differences are narrowing—particularly among emerging adults (Delker, Brown, & Hasin, 2016). In addition, it has been suggested that attitudes toward alcohol may now be very similar between male and female Hispanic emerging adults, and thus, acculturation may not have the same pronounced effect on drinking attitudes and alcohol use outcomes among Hispanic women (Montoya et al., 2016). Some post-hoc analyses of our data indicate that there were no statistically significant differences by gender in relation to acculturation orientations or alcohol use severity which may lend some support to this potential explanation.

That’s not even including methadone clinics, of which many people do not even have a methadone clinic in their county,” Vakharia says. Here are some ways Vakharia suggests treatment can be overhauled to more adequately respond to the needs of the Latinx community on a systemic level, with societal and political support. According to a 2019 report of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress, Hispanic workers earn 74% of what the typical white worker earns. Plus, Hispanic households are 1.7 times as likely to live in poverty than white households. Both acculturation and assimilation have been found to impact substance use within the Latinx community, for example in 2008 and 2019 research.

On the other hand, in Miami-Dade County, approximately 69% of the population is Hispanic, 50% of the population is composed of immigrants from Latin America, 67% of adults report speaking Spanish at home, and 53.6% of Hispanics are of Cuban heritage (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017b, 2017c). An example the demonstrates the cultural and economic interconnectedness between Miami-Dade County and Latin America is that Miami is often referred to as the “Gateway of the Americas” (National Tour Association, 2004). Acculturation, or the process of assimilating into a new culture, has also had clear effects on the drinking patterns of Hispanic Americans. Studies of U.S.-born Latino Americans show that as acculturation levels increase (such as speaking English and getting an American education), drinking levels increase too. Adolescents of Mexican parentage who have lived in the U.S. 11 years or more have significantly higher rates of alcohol abuse than those who have lived in the country for 10 years or less. Moreover, one study found that women who chose to complete a survey in English were twice as likely to drink alcohol than those who chose the Spanish version.

Read Stories About Healthy Lifestyles

Our study objective is to fill these important gaps in the available scientific literature by examining the prevalence and patterns of alcohol use in a large, diverse Hispanic/Latino sample residing in the U.S., including the relationship between alcohol use, sex, SES, and proxies of acculturation. Differences in drinking patterns have been found to vastly differ by national origin (Vaeth et al., 2012). Despite recognition of the cultural differences that exist between distinct Latino national groups, most previous research on alcohol use among Latino immigrants has been conducted exclusively with Mexican immigrant populations (Borges et al., 2011; Worby & Organista, 2013). Fewer studies have examined alcohol use patterns among a diverse sample of Cuban, South American, and Central American immigrants (Sanchez et al., 2014). With increases in immigration from South and Central America (Noe-Bustamante, 2019), these national groups are becoming more representative of the overall Latino immigrant population in the US.

The following limitations should fun substance abuse group activities be considered when interpreting the findings of this study. First, the present study utilized self-report measures that are susceptible to participant misrepresentation and error. Second, our assessment of acculturation was limited to linguistic acculturation and only two domains of bicultural self-efficacy were examined out of a possible six. Third, due to the cross-sectional design, the causal or directional ordering of associations found cannot be inferred.

The 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that 12.7% of Hispanic or Latinx people ages 12 and older, or 6.2 million people, had a substance use disorder (SUD). Briefly, a stratified two-stage area probability sample of household addresses was selected in each of the four field centers. The first sampling stage randomly selected census block groups with stratification based on Hispanic/Latino concentration and proportion of high/low socio-economic status. National Prevention Week is also recognized by the SAMHSA and raises awareness about substance use prevention and positive mental health. Binge drinking is defined as “consuming 5 or more drinks on an occasion for men or 4 or more drinks on an occasion for women,” by the CDC.

For some context, we briefly describe some characteristics of solution based treatment Maricopa County, Arizona, and Miami-Dade County, Florida which are the two communities of settlement included in the present study. In Maricopa County, approximately 31% of the population is Hispanic, 8.5% of the population is composed of immigrants from Latin America, 20% of adults report speaking Spanish at home, and 88.7% of Hispanics are of Mexican heritage (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017a, 2017b). Maricopa County has been described as a community where Hispanics often experience ethnic discrimination, hostility, and civil violations because of their real or perceived immigration status (American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, 2019).

Still, the scientists acknowledged that their study had limitations and more research is needed. Although the rates of substance abuse among Hispanic Americans do not differ from those of the overall U.S. population, there is a gap between Hispanics and the rest of the population when it comes to substance abuse treatment. With the Hispanic population expected to increase to over 30% of the population by 2050,2 it is imperative that we address any substance abuse and addiction treatment disparities currently experienced by these individuals. SAMHSA’s mission is to lead public health and service delivery efforts that promote mental health, prevent substance misuse, and provide treatments and supports to foster recovery while ensuring equitable access and better outcomes. Latino Americans represent the second-largest ethnic group in the U.S. (behind Caucasians) and were the fastest-growing group in 2015.