IPUMS presents awards for published and for student research each year. Recently Dr Amy Johnson was announced as the winner for the IPUMS Health Surveys award, along with 3 co-authors (Christopher Levesque, Neil A. Lewis Jr., and Asad L. Asad). The article is entitled "Deportation Threat Predicts Latino US Citizens and Noncitizens’ Psychological Distress, 2011 to 2018"
The authors document increasing levels of anxiety and depression among Latinos between 2011 and 2018 and study how that varies by citizenship status. They measure the relative effect on psychological distress of dramatic policy changes (e.g., DACA announced, Trump’s first election) versus the general institutional and social environment of deportation threat (i.e., monthly DHS detainee requests and monthly Google searches on “immigration”), and they find the latter to be more impactful. This innovative study shows how joining harmonized NHIS data with other data sources can illuminate contextual influences on mental health.