Abstract
The current study examined how African American children’s experiences of perceived personal racial discrimination and perceived vicarious racial discrimination were linked with depressive and anxiety symptoms, and whether there were significant sex differences in these relations. The sample included 73 African American children (48% male), ranging from 7 to 12 years of age (M = 8.82, SD = 2.06). Models specified children’s personal discrimination and vicarious discrimination as predictors of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Nested model comparisons were also used to examine whether associations varied as a function of children’s sex. The current study hypothesized that both forms of discrimination would be associated with greater anxiety and depressive symptoms. Findings indicated that children’s personal racial discrimination significantly predicted greater child anxiety symptoms for both boys and girls. No significant sex differences emerged. Neither personal nor vicarious discrimination significantly predicted depressive symptoms. Our findings highlight that racialized experiences occur early in childhood and have important implications for children’s mental health.
Highlights
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Racial discrimination is known to have detrimental effects on African American adolescents’ and emerging adults’ mental health, but limited work has tested these effects among school-aged children.
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Findings indicated that personal racial discrimination experiences predicted greater anxiety symptoms among 7- to 12-year-old children.
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Clinicians working with African American children, especially those with anxiety symptoms, should assess children’s negative racialized experiences. Clinicians are well-positioned to help young African American children process and cope with their racial discrimination experiences in order to prevent negative effects on mental health.
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Author Contributions
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by M.W. (materials and data collection), R.E. (materials and data collection), C.W. (analysis) and C.W. (analysis). The first draft of the manuscript was written by C.W. and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by Virginia Commonwealth University and C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research (award number UL1TR002649).
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Walker, C.J., Williams, C.D., Winter, M.A. et al. African American Children’s Racial Discrimination Experiences and Mental Health. J Child Fam Stud 31, 1621–1629 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02311-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02311-3