Research Article Culturally Adapted Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Latino Depression and Anxiety: A Meta-Analysis Abbie Nelson 1 , Esther Ayers 1 , Fei Sun 1 , and Anao Zhang 2 Abstract Objectives: Culturally adapted psychotherapeutic interventions have been developed to treat Latino depression and anxiety. Evidence is lacking regarding the overall effectiveness and generalizability of these adapted interventions. This study conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of psychotherapeutic interventions for Latino depression or anxiety. Method: A search of nine electronic databases and manual review of reference lists were conducted. Thirteen studies of randomized controlled trials were eligible and included for meta-analysis using robust variance estimation in meta-regression. Results: An overall small treatment effect that is statistically significant was identified for Latino depression or anxiety of d ¼ 0.334, 95% confidence interval [0.049, 0.619], p < .05. Discussion and Implications: More research is needed to determine the effectiveness of culturally adapted psychotherapeutic interventions for Latino depression or anxiety. Keywords Latino, psychotherapeutic interventions, Latino depression or anxiety, systematic review, meta-analysis Anxiety and depression, affecting all demographics across the life span, are the two most common mental health disorders for the population in the United States, with anxiety disorders estimated at 28.8% (Kessler et al., 2005) and depression esti- mated at 17% (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2018). An estimated 7.1% of children and teenagers (CDC, 2019) and 21.7% of adults (Kessler et al., 2005) in the United States have an anxiety disorder in their lifetime. One in six Americans, approximately 17%, will experience depression in their life span (CDC, 2019). The estimates of overall pre- valence rates of depression among Latinos were higher than the national average of 17% at a rate of 27% determined by a cross- sectional analysis of 15,864 men and women aged 18–74 years in the population-based Hispanic Community Health Study/ Study of Latinos (Wassertheil-Smoller et al., 2014). In this study, a shortened Center for Epidemiological Studies Depres- sion Scale was used to assess depression (Wassertheil-Smoller et al., 2014). Alegria et al. (2008), found a rate of anxiety disorders for U.S.-born Latinos 18.9% compared to foreign- born Latino immigrants at a lower rate of 15.2% using data from the National Latino and Asian American Study and the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (Kessler & Merikan- gas, 2004). Although numbers vary depending on the study and method, it is still clear Latinos are experiencing anxiety and depression. We used Latino to refer to Hispanic and Latino population studied in this research. The term “Hispanic” emerged in the middle to late 1970s and was used by the Cen- sus Bureau in the 1980s to describe people with varying backgrounds but share a common language and cultural heri- tage (Del Olmo, 2001 as cited by Delgado, 2007). The term Latino emerged in the early 1990s and it is not uncommon to see the terms Hispanic and Latino used interchangeably (Del- gado, 2007). The Latino population in the United States was 56.5 million in 2015 accounting for 17.6% of the total population, and it is expected to grow to 29% of the population by 2050 (Pew Research, 2015).The high prevalence of both depression and anxiety among Latinos and the limited number of culturally adaptive interventions and research of efficacy create the need for research to identify if culturally adaptive interventions are effective in addressing depression and/or anxiety among Lati- nos. Without effective treatment for Hispanics with anxiety and depression, the negative societal effects will compound as the percentage of the population grows likely leading to more eco- nomic, health, and familial costs to individuals and society. This study reports findings of a systematic review and meta- analysis of culturally adapted psychotherapeutic interventions for treating Latino depression or anxiety. The purpose of this 1 School of Social Work, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA 2 School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Corresponding Author: Abbie Nelson, School of Social Work, Michigan State University, 655 Audi- torium Rd #254, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. Email: nelso777@msu.edu Research on Social Work Practice 1-14 ª The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1049731519899991 journals.sagepub.com/home/rsw