COVID-19 Based Discrimination and Economic Stress on Psychosocial and Health Risks in Children

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely contributed to major health disparities, with discrimination and economic concerns identified as major factors that have created or exacerbated disparities. Yet, how children and families respond to these experiences and its impact on children’s health and well-being remains largely unknown. The symposium highlights emerging findings from researchers with data specifically obtained during the COVID-19 pandemic, that shed light on the potential contributions of racial discrimination and economic stresses on children’s psychosocial and physical health risks.

Paper 1 shows that parental experiences of racial discrimination among Chinese American parents during the COVID-19 pandemic predicted a socialization profile that included teaching their children to avoid ethnic-racial outgroups and to hide their own race-ethnic heritage - behaviors that were detrimental to children’s psychosocial development. Paper 2 demonstrates how children’s experiences of racial discrimination before the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to medical mistrust attitudes and higher levels of COVID-19 health risk behaviors, thus having potential negative consequences for physical health. Paper 3 shows that COVID-19-based economic hardship and financial stress contribute to child emotional/behavioral difficulties, that appear attributable to parenting behavior, parents’ emotional distress, and marital problems. This symposium: 1) demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic has produced new racial and economic-based stress experiences among diverse families, and 2) provides initial evidence of how these factors might influence children’s psychosocial and health risks. The discussion will focus on how these approaches can generate insights on possible shifts to the developmental trajectories among this generation of children living under pandemic conditions.

Sub Unit

• Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Chair

• Cindy H. Liu, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Discussant

• Paul David Hastings, University of California - Davis

Individual Presentations

• Chinese American Parents’ Racial-Ethnic Socialization Profiles during the COVID-19 Pandemic - Presenting Author: Charissa S. L. Cheah, University of Maryland - Baltimore County; Non-Presenting Author: Huiguang Ren, University of Maryland - Baltimore County; Non-Presenting Author: Xiaoli Zong, University of Maryland - Baltimore County; Non-Presenting Author: Suqing Wang, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Non-Presenting Author: Hyun Su Cho, University of Maryland - Baltimore County; Non-Presenting Author: Xiaofang Xue, University of Maryland - Baltimore County

• A Prospective Investigation of Discrimination, Medical Mistrust, and Health Behavior Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic - Presenting Author: Tuppett M. Yates, University of California - Riverside; Non-Presenting Author: Duyen T. Trang, University of California - Riverside; Non-Presenting Author: Stacey N Doan, Claremont Mckenna College

• Testing the Family Stress Model of Economic Hardships in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic - Presenting Author: Meital Mashash, University of California - San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Lindsey Partington, University of California - Davis; Non-Presenting Author: Paul David Hastings, University of California - Davis