TY - JOUR
T1 - Longitudinal determinants of thriving in Puerto Rican climate crisis migrants on the U.S. mainland
T2 - A structural equation model
AU - Duque, Maria
AU - Vo, Duyen H.
AU - Montero-Zamora, Pablo
AU - Cobb, Cory L.
AU - Sahbaz, Sumeyra
AU - Ertanir, Beyhan
AU - Bautista, Tara
AU - Watkins, Lawrence G.
AU - Acaf, Yara
AU - Macias, Miracle Ashley
AU - Alpysbekova, Aigerim
AU - Garcia, Maria Fernanda
AU - Rodriguez, Jose
AU - Bates, Melissa M.
AU - Calderon, Ivonne A.
AU - Maldonado-Molina, Mildred M.
AU - Bartholomew, John B.
AU - Pinedo, Miguel
AU - Lee, Tae Kyoung
AU - Salas-Wright, Christopher P.
AU - Schwartz, Seth J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2025/2
Y1 - 2025/2
N2 - Climate-related disasters pose significant risks to mental health and well-being globally. Individuals from disaster-prone regions, such as Puerto Rico, are at even greater risk. The devastating effects of recurrent hurricanes, compounded with pre-existing structural disparities (e.g., poverty and corruption), can further exacerbate psychosocial vulnerabilities and drive mass migration to the United States mainland. Most research on mental health among climate migrants focuses on risks, whereas promotive factors such as thriving are often overlooked. In the present study, we estimated a longitudinal structural equation model to examine the predictive effect of psychological thriving (i.e., optimism, life satisfaction) on sociocultural thriving (i.e., income, happiness, comfort, job satisfaction), mental distress (i.e., internalizing symptoms, post-traumatic stress) and cultural stressors using three waves of data from 319 adult Hurricane Maria survivor migrants (HMSMs) who relocated to the U.S. mainland between 2017 and 2020. We also examined the mediating effect of prosocial behavior and collective efficacy in this association. Our findings indicate various direct, simple mediation, and serial mediation paths between baseline psychological thriving and outcomes. Life satisfaction and collective efficacy mediated most of the predicted indirect pathways. These results suggest that, despite facing complex challenges, HMSMs are not only adapting to their mainland communities but are also thriving.
AB - Climate-related disasters pose significant risks to mental health and well-being globally. Individuals from disaster-prone regions, such as Puerto Rico, are at even greater risk. The devastating effects of recurrent hurricanes, compounded with pre-existing structural disparities (e.g., poverty and corruption), can further exacerbate psychosocial vulnerabilities and drive mass migration to the United States mainland. Most research on mental health among climate migrants focuses on risks, whereas promotive factors such as thriving are often overlooked. In the present study, we estimated a longitudinal structural equation model to examine the predictive effect of psychological thriving (i.e., optimism, life satisfaction) on sociocultural thriving (i.e., income, happiness, comfort, job satisfaction), mental distress (i.e., internalizing symptoms, post-traumatic stress) and cultural stressors using three waves of data from 319 adult Hurricane Maria survivor migrants (HMSMs) who relocated to the U.S. mainland between 2017 and 2020. We also examined the mediating effect of prosocial behavior and collective efficacy in this association. Our findings indicate various direct, simple mediation, and serial mediation paths between baseline psychological thriving and outcomes. Life satisfaction and collective efficacy mediated most of the predicted indirect pathways. These results suggest that, despite facing complex challenges, HMSMs are not only adapting to their mainland communities but are also thriving.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117615
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117615
M3 - Article
C2 - 39731867
AN - SCOPUS:85213040833
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 366
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
M1 - 117615
ER -