Wellness in Uncertain Times: The Hispanic Family Experience

When we talk about wellness, we are inclined to focus on personal choices—what we eat, how we manage stress, how active we are, and when we seek medical care. But wellness is also inherently shaped by the conditions surrounding those choices.

Growing up in a Hispanic community, I had the sense that wellness is shaped by more than individual behavior. Family and community relationships, music, politics, art, and other cultural influences affect how we experience and respond to the world around us. It wasn’t necessarily taught to me, but it’s rather something that is simply felt or understood.

Immigration has long been a contentious issue for Hispanic communities in the United States. Today’s immigration climate adds a heavy layer of uncertainty to the broader cultural and environmental forces that shape wellness.

Immigration debates often focus on policy, politics, and legal status. Yet their effects reach parents, children, relatives, friends, and communities navigating uncertainty in daily life: the immigration climate can shape emotional health, family routines, and decisions about seeking medical care.

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This is not simply a matter of personal belief or anecdote. Research shows that immigration concerns extend beyond the person whose status may be uncertain.

Hispanic families can include U.S. born citizens, naturalized citizens, permanent residents, and relatives with very different immigration experiences and journeys. Concern for one family member can quickly become a burden shared by the entire family.

In October 2025, the Pew Research Center found that 52% of Latino adults surveyed worried that they, a family member, or a close friend could be deported, up from 42% in March 2025. That concern was not limited to immigrants. It was also reported among U.S. born Latinos.[8]

That sense of uncertainty can show up in health as well. In a 2025 KFF and New York Times Survey of Immigrants, 51% of Hispanic immigrant adults reported at least one negative health impact related to immigration worries. Whether it is increased stress, anxiety or sadness, difficulty sleeping or eating, and worsening of existing health conditions, these are not imaginary but real experiences that impact both mind and body.[1]

Children feel the ripples too. Eighteen percent (18%) of immigrant parents said immigration-related worries had negatively affected the well-being of at least one of their children, including changes in sleep, eating, school performance, attendance, or behavior.[2] Together, these findings show how community, belonging and wellness intertwine, as stress experienced by one person can move through a family and affect the well-being of both adults and children.

I have seen this ripple effect through my daughter. She recently told me about a classmate whose father was deported and how the separation has affected his performance at school and his relationships with friends. His mother now works three jobs to provide for the family and, unfortunately, the distance has changed his relationship with his father. Hearing this story made me think about the many children trying to get through an ordinary school day while so much of their family life has changed.

Her friend’s pain extends to her as well. She feels sadness and, at times, hopelessness about what people she knows are experiencing. Her response shows how one family’s pain can reach the people around them, leaving entire communities to carry the effects collectively.

This shared stress can also shape whether families feel safe seeking the care they need. In this way, the effects of immigration uncertainty can extend beyond emotional well-being and become a direct barrier to medical care.

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One of the most tangible ways this uncertainty can affect wellness is when fear becomes a reason not to seek medical help.

Think about what that means in everyday life. Someone may know they need a doctor yet still wonder whether sharing personal information could somehow put them or someone they love at risk.

The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that 51% of immigrant adults were concerned that doctors, hospitals, or other health officials might share information about their immigration status with immigration enforcement authorities. Among immigrants considered likely undocumented, that number reached 78%.[3]

That concern can affect real decisions. Since January 2025, 14% of immigrant adults said they or a family member had avoided seeking medical care because of immigration-related concerns. Among likely undocumented immigrants, nearly half, 48%, reported doing so.[4]

These concerns align with a wider increase in delayed care. The share of immigrant adults who said they skipped or postponed health care for any reason increased from 22% in 2023 to 29% in 2025. Cost and insurance remained much larger barriers, but among immigrants who had gone without care, 19% identified immigration-related concerns as one of the reasons.[5]

These findings shed a different light on the meaning of access to health care. Availability matters, but so does whether people feel safe enough to seek care.

For healthcare organizations, researchers, and wellness brands, trust should never be relegated to secondary consideration. It shapes whether people see information, services, and care settings as safe and accessible.

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The effects of uncertainty extend beyond immediate health concerns and decisions about seeking medical care. They can also create an emotional burden that reaches into schools, workplaces, families, and communities.

The American Psychological Association has highlighted how fear surrounding detention, deportation, and family separation can contribute to chronic stress and emotional distress. It also notes that the effects can extend into schools, workplaces, health care settings, and community life.[6]

My daughter has witnessed similar situations at the Hispanic restaurant where she works. She has seen co-workers lose their visas and others deported, while others live with the stress of relatives being deported or fearing their loved one could be next. Because she works alongside and cares about them, their uncertainty has become part of her emotional burden. It reminds me that the emotional consequences can linger long after a specific encounter ends.

For healthcare executives and professionals, healthcare marketers, and for researchers, this broader context is essential: behaviors that appear to reflect personal preference may instead be responses to stress, uncertainty, or changing circumstances.

Someone may look less engaged with their health because they postponed an appointment. A parent may change a family routine because certain activities no longer feel comfortable. A consumer may behave differently than they did a few months ago because the environment around them has changed.

Without that context, a response to stress or changing circumstances may be easily mistaken for a shift in personal preference, obscuring what is actually driving the behavior.

These effects are significant, but they do not define Hispanic wellness as a whole. Experiences vary widely across Hispanic communities and within immigrant populations.

Hispanic communities in the United States represent many countries, generations, languages, socioeconomic backgrounds, immigration experiences, and family structures. The impact of the immigration climate will look very different from one person or household to another.

Even within immigrant communities, KFF found significant differences. Negative health impacts related to immigration worries were reported by 77% of likely undocumented immigrants, 47% of lawfully present immigrants, and 29% of naturalized citizens.[7]

These differences reinforce the very real role of Hispanics’ lived experiences and why organizations and marketers should invest in learning more about them.

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Understanding Hispanic health and wellness requires brands to look beyond traditional demographics and explore context, the household, cultural, and environmental factors shaping behavior. Organizations and brands looking to build trust among their Hispanic audiences should invest in having a thorough understanding of this contextual reality.

• Who else is part of the household?
• What concerns are affecting the family?
• Does someone feel comfortable seeking health care?
• Has the environment changed their daily routine?
• Does language influence trust or comfort?
• Could stress experienced by one family member be affecting decisions made by another?

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Hispanic Heritage Month is an opportunity to celebrate the traditions, food, music, language, identities, and communities that make Hispanic culture incredibly diverse. But it is also a moment to listen to what people are experiencing right now.

People have very different perspectives on immigration policy. But whatever those perspectives may be, data from multiple recent research efforts shows that immigration related concerns are impacting stress, family life, everyday behavior, and decisions about health care for many in the Hispanic communities.

For us at CultureBeat (and hopefully for you as well), these findings make the conversation about wellness broader and more human, connecting health not only to personal choices but also to the circumstances surrounding families and communities.

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1. KFF and The New York Times. “KFF/New York Times 2025 Survey of Immigrants: Health and Health Care Experiences During the Second Trump Administration.” November 18, 2025. kff.org
2. KFF. “Health and Health Care Experiences of Immigrant Parents and Their Children During the Second Trump Term.” March 2, 2026. kff.org
3. KFF and The New York Times. 2025 Survey of Immigrants. kff.org
4. KFF and The New York Times. 2025 Survey of Immigrants. kff.org
5. KFF and The New York Times. 2025 Survey of Immigrants. kff.org
6. American Psychological Association. “U.S. Immigration Policy: Mental Health Impacts of Increased Immigration Enforcement.” September 2025. apa.org
7. KFF and The New York Times. 2025 Survey of Immigrants. kff.org
8. Pew Research Center. “Majorities of Latinos Disapprove of Trump and His Policies on Immigration, Economy.” November 24, 2025. pewresearch.org