Latino Outcome Studies in Social Work: A Review of the Literature

Objective: This article is a review of outcome studies focusing on three social work fields of service-health, substance abuse, and mental health-in which Latinos were significantly represented in the sample and interventions developed to attend to cultural factors. Method: Data were collected from a search of several English language social science indexes to identify experimental or quasi-experimental studies published between 1999 and 2005 focusing on measuring the effect of cultural adaptations of interventions with Latino populations. Results: Twenty-three studies were located and reviewed. Findings are discussed in this article. Conclusions: Most studies with positive outcomes for Latinos used some culturally tailored variation of cognitive theory in the therapeutic intervention. The authors advocate for a mixed methods approach to future studies of Latinos.