Poster #95 - COVID-19 and Racial Injustice Among Black Youth: Considering Community Mentor Support and Psychosocial Outcomes

• In Event: Poster Session 03

Abstract

COVID-19 has been a global public health concern with consequential impacts on mental health, physical health, and economic well-being (Cao et al., 2020; Oosterhoff et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020). Black communities, in particular, bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of infection rates, hospitalization, and mortality rates (Poteat et al., 2020), leaving Black adolescents vulnerable to psychosocial difficulties. Concurrently in 2020, youth were exposed to the highly publicized murders of unarmed Black people, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (Shim & Starks, 2021). This vicarious exposure to racism created a broad context of threat and fear of victimization for Black youth (Bird et al., 2021). The simultaneous COVID‐19 pandemic and racial injustice pandemic and their impact on psychosocial functioning have been referred to as “syndemic” stressors that tax the coping abilities of youth (Cokely et al., 2021; Gravlee, 2020; Shim & Starks, 2021; Powell, 2021). Despite increased stress for Black youth during the COVID-19 pandemic, positive relationships with mentors may buffer the negative impact of syndemic stressors on psychosocial responses.
The purpose of the current study was to apply a syndemic framework to examine associations between COVID‐19 stress and discrimination in the prediction of three psychosocial coping responses: engaged coping responses, disengaged coping responses, and racial injustice self efficacy beliefs among Black youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we sought to examine mentor socio-emotional support that the youth received as a moderator of these associations. Participants were 1,146 youth who identified as Black/African (American). Our participants had an average age of 14.7 (SD = 2.3, range = 8-21), and 48.4% of them identified as female (51.6% male).
Discrimination was inversely associated with engaged coping (-.10, p =.042) and racial injustice efficacy beliefs (-.12, p =.002). Further, there was a significant interaction between COVID-19 and discrimination in predicting engaged coping (.01, p =.022). Among youth that did experience discrimination, COVID-19 stress was significantly associated with Black youth who reported receiving greater social-emotional mentor support and reported higher utilization of engaged coping (β = .48, p < .001) and higher utilization of disengaged coping (β = .46, p < .001). Additionally, Black youth who reported greater mentor support also reported higher racial injustice efficacy beliefs (β = .50, p < .001). Results showed a significant positive two-way interaction between discrimination and social-emotional mentor support in models predicting disengaged coping (β = -.20, p < .003) and racial injustice efficacy beliefs (β = -.12, p < .027). Further, there was a significant three-way interaction between COVID-19 stress, discrimination, and social-emotional mentor support on disengaged coping (β = -.13, p <.041), such that social-emotional mentor support was a positive predictor of disengaged coping for all Black youth in our sample, except those who experienced both discrimination and a high level of COVID-19 stress. The current study highlights that ongoing socio-emotional mentorship can attend to the psychosocial strengths of Black youth even in the face of concurrent, ongoing stressors.

Authors

• Robyn Douglas, Texas A&M University - College Station
  Presenting Author

• Ta-yang Hsieh, Search Institute

• Lauren Alvis, The Hackett Center for Mental Health

• Noni K Gaylord-Harden, Texas A&M University - College Station

• Amy K. Syvertsen, Search Institute