BOSTON, United States (CMC):

A new study on psychiatric problems in the United States has found that Caribbean-born blacks experience more mental health problems than usual, the longer they stay in the country.

The researchers have linked this to being a minority group within the society, struggling to cope with depressed social conditions.

"Increased exposure to minority status in the United States was associated with higher risks for psychiatric disorders among black Caribbean immigrants, which possibly reflects increased societal stress and downward social mobility associated with being black in America," the researchers said.

Researchers found in the startling study, published on Friday in the Boston-based American Journal of Public Health, that third-generation Caribbean blacks have "markedly elevated rates of psychiatric disorders" than first- or second-generation Caribbean-born blacks.

Higher risks

Compared with African American men, Caribbean black men had higher risks of 12-month rates of psychiatric disorders, the researchers from the University of Michigan, Ann Harbor, and Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan found.

For Caribbean black women, the researchers found that they had lower odds for 12-month and lifetime psychiatric disorders compared with African American women.

"Risks varied by ethnicity, immigration history, and generation status within the Caribbean sample," the researchers said after examining the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among black Caribbean immigrants and African American populations and the correlates of psychiatric disorders among the Caribbean black population.

The majority of black, foreign-born immigrants are from the Caribbean. Black, foreign-born immigrants constitute six per cent of the U.S. population.