The Impact of COVID-19 among Recent Latinx Immigrants: Examining Opportunities for Intervention

Abstract Emerging evidence reveals the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the US Latinx immigrantcommunity. Concern for the consequences of COVID-19 is especially high among the Latinx population inMiami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida. As of April 24, 35% of all reported COVID-19 casesin the state of Florida (10,926), 27% of deaths (287), and 30% of persons hospitalized (12,465) were residentsof Miami-Dade County. Given that Miami-Dade is at epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state ofFlorida and the majority of its 2.8 million residents are Latinx immigrants, there is an urgent need to explore theimpact of COVID-19 in this population. Latinx immigrants face increased challenges related to employment,financial strain, access to care, limited social support systems, language barriers, and fears related toimmigration status that create barriers to adherence of COVID-19 containment and mitigation efforts, and couldexacerbate downstream health effects such as mental health and substance use problems. The relative effecton recent Latinx immigrants, many of whom have experienced forced migration and are struggling to adapt to anew host country, may be particularly devastating. The proposed study addresses this urgent need by leveraging an ongoing NIAAA-sponsored longitudinalstudy set (currently in the second wave of data collection). Specifically, the study will administer asupplemental COVID-19 protocol to our already engaged sample of recent Latinx immigrants. This data will bemerged with pre- and post-pandemic data currently being collected via the parent study. The overarching aimof the proposed study is to (1) examine adherence and attitudes to COVID-19 containment and mitigationefforts and (2) how sociocultural factors coupled with COVID-19 related stress impacts changes in alcohol andother drug use and adverse mental health outcomes in this population. This research would immediatelyleverage the parent study cohort, infrastructure, and existing protocol to rapidly assess the impact of theCOVID-19 pandemic in this vulnerable Latinx subgroup. This knowledge will be critical to informing earlyresponse procedures with the power to mitigate deleterious COVID-19 adherence and mitigation efforts,pandemic stressors, and subsequent downstream health consequences such as alcohol and other drug useand adverse mental health outcomes in this population. Additionally, knowledge gained from the proposedstudy can be utilized to examine the impacts of COVID-19 on the original study outcomes (i.e., impaireddriving, transportation). Findings from this investigation can prove to be invaluable in understanding thebehavioral changes triggered by COVID-19 among recent Latinx immigrants, and informing effective policiesand culturally relevant outreach strategies that can be applied in the face of future pandemic recurrences.