Acculturation, health, stress, and psychological distress among elderly Hispanics.

A structural equations model is proposed to identify direct, indirect, and total effects of selected predictors of psychological distress in a national-area probability sample of Mexican American, Puerto Rican and Cuban elderly. Multivariate regression procedures vis-\,a-vis LISREL-7 techniques are used. The findings indicate that the modified path model explains 29% of the variance in psychological distress. Measures of acculturation have significant indirect effects on psychological distress via other intervening variables in the model. All selected measures of health and stress included in the model have significant direct effect on psychological distress. Implications of the findings for future research and public policy are discussed. jg]Key words gw]Acculturation gw]Health gw]Psychological distress gw]Stress gw]Elderly Hispanics gw]USA.