MINI REVIEW article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
This article is part of the Research TopicWar Trauma and Psychological Interventions among RefugeesView all articles
Trauma and Economic Displacement: Psychological Consequences and Interventions among Venezuelan Refugees in the Americas
Provisionally accepted
- Ajman University, Ajman, United Arab Emirates
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This review conceptualizes the Venezuelan refugee crisis as a form of war‑like displacement produced by protracted economic collapse, institutional breakdown, and chronic insecurity rather than conventional armed conflict. Synthesizing epidemiological studies and humanitarian reports, it describes consistently elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and trauma‑related symptoms among Venezuelan refugees and migrants across the Americas, with prevalences comparable to those observed in conflict‑affected refugee populations. The article argues that cumulative exposure to pre‑migration deprivation, life‑threatening migratory routes such as the Darién Gap, and post‑migration legal precarity and discrimination is best understood through ecological and continuous traumatic stress frameworks, which highlight chronic threat and social determinants of mental health. Finally, the review examines emerging evidence on low‑intensity, community‑based, and culturally adapted interventions, outlining promising scalable approaches as well as structural, systemic, and methodological barriers that currently limit access, effectiveness, and sustainability of care for Venezuelan refugees.
Keywords: Ecological model, Mental Health, Migration, Refugees, stress, Venezuela
Received: 16 Jan 2026; Accepted: 30 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Andrade and Dahawi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Maha Dahawi
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.