Representations of African Americans in the Grief and Mourning Literature from 1998 to 2014: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The authors examined representations of African Americans in the grief literature to assess (a) frequencies; (b) content; and (c) use of universalist or a contextualized framework. They conducted searches in 3 databases that target the grief literature published in the last 15 years. Fifty-nine articles met the criteria. There are a small number of studies published on African Americans and these tend to focus on homicide. Many studies had incomplete methods. Comparison studies were common and pathological grief outcomes that were validated on White populations were used as outcome variables with African American participants.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We thank Dr. Ora Nakash for her insightful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Notes

¹In 2011, the raw numbers provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicated that the homicide rates were similar among Blacks (n = 6,329) and Whites (n = 5,825); however, Whites are 78% of the American population, whereas Blacks are 13% indicating a much higher homicide rate among Blacks when compared to the total population (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014).