Individual and Neighborhood Stressors, Sleep Problems, and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression Among Latino Youth

Limited research has examined the relation between exposure to stressors and internalizing symptoms among Latino adolescents, including factors that account for this relation. This study examined whether sleep played a role in the relation between exposure to neighborhood-(i.e., neighborhood disadvantage) and individual-level (i.e., negative life events) stressors and symptoms of anxiety and depression among a sample of 144 low-income, Latino adolescents (54% males, mean age = 16.25, SD = 1.46) attending a charter high school in a large, Midwestern city. The bias corrected bootstrap method was used to evaluate indirect effects. Significant findings indicated an indirect effect via sleep problems in the link between negative life events and anxiety. Alternative models were also explored. Results suggest that sleep problems are important to consider for interventions among Latino youth, particularly those exposed to neighborhood and individual stressors, as this may also have implications for reducing internalizing symptoms among this population.