Protective Factors for Depressive Symptoms in Asian American Adolescents: Implications for Culturally-Responsive Prevention Programming

Background and Purpose:  In contrast to the “model minority” myth, a growing number of studies document high rates of depression among Asian American adolescents. Key risk factors for depression in this population are stress at school and intergenerational family conflict at home. However, there is limited research on the factors that protect Asian American adolescents from depression and the prevalence of these developmental assets across racial and ethnic sub-groups. The aims of this study are to 1) examine the association between internal and external protective factors and depressive symptoms among Asian American youth, and, 2) investigate the prevalence of these protective factors by race and ethnicity.

Methods:  In the spring of 2009, the California Healthy Kids Survey of risk behaviors and protective factors (Hanson & Kim, 2007) was administered to all high school students in an urban community with a large population of Asian American youth. A 71% response rate yielded a sample of 8,466 students that was 58% Asian, 15% Latino, 9% Black, 6% White, 3% Pacific Islander, and 11% Multiracial. The largest ethnic subgroups in the sample of Asian youth were Chinese (67%), Cambodian (7%), Filipino (6%) and Vietnamese (4%). Associations between external and internal protective factors (e.g. caring adult relationships and self-awareness) and the presence of depressive symptoms were examined using multilevel logistic regression models that accounted for the clustering of students by school. Control variables included gender, age, family structure, bullying victimization, and substance use. The prevalence of external and internal protective factors among different racial and ethnic groups was assessed using descriptive statistics. Differences in group mean scores by race and ethnicity were compared using one-way ANOVA with a Bonferroni post hoc test.

Findings:  External protective factors inversely associated with the presence of depressive symptoms for Asian American youth included caring relationships with adults at school (OR= .69, p<.01) and at home (OR= .64, p<.001), along with high expectations from peers (.72, p<.005). The only internal asset inversely associated with the presence depressive symptoms was self-awareness (OR= .49, p<.001). There were statistically significant racial and ethnic differences in the prevalence of most protective factors. In general, Asian youth tended to report lower levels of both internal and external assets than their White, Latino, or Black peers, most notably in the area of caring relationships with adults.  Among Asian adolescents, Cambodian youth tended to report the lowest levels of external and internal protective factors.

Conclusions:  In addition to minimizing risk factors, findings suggest that interventions to prevent depression among Asian American youth should promote self-awareness, caring relationships with adults, and high expectations from peers. Cambodian youth in particular appear to be in need of mental health prevention programs that improve developmental supports and enhance personal strengths.