Developing a Technology-Assisted Intervention to Reduce Stress among Immigrant Women

In previous RHCP assessments, addressing mental health and stress has been identified as a health priority for research by community partners. Community partners acknowledge and research has shown that immigrant women face unique stressors associated with parenting, gender roles, language barriers, family separation, employment uncertainties, among others. Stress has been linked to numerous health consequences at both the mental and physical levels. RHCP partners expressed interest in developing a stress management intervention and thought that a gender-specific intervention focused on women would be helpful as the first step in this research.

To explore immigrant women's experiences with stress, their opinions about a stress management intervention, its delivery format, and whether technology-assisted interventions could be included, so that a culturally appropriate programming could be developed, focus groups among Somali, Spanish, and English-speaking immigrant women will be conducted to obtain stakeholder feedback to culturally adapt an evidence-based stress management intervention.  It is anticipated that the results of this study will assist in developing and evaluating a culturally-sensitive stress management intervention prototype for immigrant women.