Doctoral student Patricia Cabral’s research has attracted a lot of attention lately.
Cabral, who studies adolescent health risk behaviors (HRBs) in the Psychological Sciences group, recently won a highly-competitive Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship — the first of its kind awarded to a UC Merced graduate student.
The $72,000 fellowship will fund three years of research that could eventually have direct effects on the Latino youth of the San Joaquin Valley and beyond.
Cabral researches sexual activity and drug, alcohol and tobacco use in first-, second- and third-generation Latino youth. She’s specifically interested in how factors such as gender norms, parental monitoring, neighborhood quality and traditional Latino cultural values like familismo — which emphasizes family unity — influence the likelihood that youth will engage in these health risk behaviors (HRBs).
“Patty’s research is particularly timely and significant in California, where 50 percent of all children are Latino,” said Professor Jan Wallander, Cabral’s advisor. “Though youth of all different backgrounds may behave in ways that can have impacts on their health — such as engaging in early, unprotected sex — it is especially important for Latino youth to understand how their heritage influences such behavior.”
The health problems caused by these behaviors are especially concerning because Latinos have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the U.S., their sexually-transmitted infection (STI) prevalence is more than twice that of white adolescents, and they are at a high risk for early initiation of drinking, smoking and drug use.
Despite the dismal statistics, there is hope for a better future for Latino adolescents.
Health psychologists have for years acknowledged an epidemiological paradox in Latino populations — essentially, Latinos who are less acculturated live longer and generally have better health outcomes than non-Latino groups of similar or better socioeconomic status — even when they engage in these risky behaviors.
This means that if Cabral can identify the social and cultural influences that help Latino adolescents make better choices, targeted prevention and outreach efforts could significantly improve their health outcomes over time.
Cabral recently won a competitive $3,000 One Health Student Summer Research fellowship from the UC Global Health Institute Center of Expertise for Migration and Health — which awarded only four such fellowships among applicants from all 10 campuses.
She was presenting a paper on similar research at the annual meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine when she got the news about the Ford fellowship.
Cabral — herself a second-generation Latina and a first-generation student — is thrilled that her work is garnering this kind of attention.
“I am honored to be the recipient of these awards, but equally thrilled that these fine institutions are funding such important research,” Cabral said. “The epidemiological paradox has mostly been studied in relation to adult health risk behaviors, and we need to learn more about how it functions in relation to adolescent health risk behaviors in order to positively impact their health outcomes.”
