Racial discrimination and depressive symptoms mediated by conversations about race among students of color

Abstract

Racial discrimination is associated with adverse mental health outcomes among Students of Color. In order to address racial tensions, it is important to consider students’ dialogues about race. The current study tested whether having positive and negative conversations about one’s ethnic-racial group mediated the relation between racial discrimination at T1 and depressive symptoms 5 months later at T2 among 94 college Students of Color. Findings indicated that greater racial discrimination at T1 was associated with more frequent negative conversations about race at T2 (b = .38, p = .00), which was, in turn, associated with greater depressive symptoms at T2 (b = 2.73, p = .04); this pathway demonstrated significant mediation. However, positive conversations about race was not a significant mediator in this association. The current study highlights the importance of focusing on racial conversations after racial discrimination in order to minimize adverse effects on mental health among Students of Color.

Keywords:

• Conversations about race
• depressive symptoms
• discrimination
• mental health

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the employees of 23andMe and research participants for making this work possible. Study data were collected using REDCap electronic data capture tools, which is a secure, web-based software platform designed to support data capture for research studies (Award Number UL1TR002649 from the NCRR).

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by 23andMe, Inc. Chelsea D. Williams’ efforts on this article were partially supported by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Inclusion, Inquiry & Innovation (iCubed). Danielle M. Dick is funded by K02 AA018755.