Lissette Piedra

Professor Piedra’s research interests explores the social consequences of an increasingly diverse society by examining how the language and culture of immigrants affect their access to and use of social and health services. Specifically, her analyses have focused on three interrelated topics, as they apply to Latino immigrants: (1) the mental health service barriers created by linguistic and cultural incongruence, (2) the increased need for bilingual and interpretational services in communities with rapidly growing immigrant populations, and (3) the adaption of interventions to these new service contexts through university and community partnerships. Her recent work builds on this conceptual foundation by adapting a cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of depressed immigrant mothers living in communities with new Hispanic populations.  Subsequently, she developed Vida Alegre [Happy/Contented Life], a 10-week group CBT to address maternal depression and that trains bilingual BSW and graduate students to implement the model.  Dr. Piedra plans to test this intervention in other new growth communities in Illinois and throughout the U.S.