(PS3-C69) Racial/ethnic Discrimination and Internalizing Symptomatology in Ethno-racially Minoritized Youth: Findings from the ABCD Study

Background:  Since 2016, rates of anxiety and depression have increased by more than 25% in U.S. youth. Within this population, Black and Latinx youth often experience a higher prevalence of internalizing disorders and greater chronicity of anxiety and depression relative to non-Latinx White youth. Experiences with racial/ethnic discrimination (RED), the behavioral expression of racism, is a prevalent social stressor for Black (10%) and Latinx (5.4%) youth. Further, RED is linked to increased odds of developing psychopathology, namely anxiety and depressive disorders. The current study aims to further assess the associations between RED and internalizing symptomatology in a racially and ethnically diverse youth sample from the longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study.  

Method:  Youth- and parent-reported questionnaire data from Year 2 (2016) were collected on Non-Latinx Black (N = 1,871), Latinx (N = 2,086), and Other Race (N = 6,456) youth enrolled in the ABCD study. Past-year RED was self-reported by youth using a binary (yes/no) single-item from the 2006 Boston Youth Survey. The Anxious/Depressed and Withdrawn/Depressed syndrome scales from the parent-reported Child Behavior Checklist were used to assess anxiety and depressive symptomatology, respectively. Generalized additive models were run using R to measure the main effect of RED on each syndrome scale across the entire sample, and test stratified models of this effect by race/ethnicity. Age and assigned sex were added as covariates.

Results:  Past-year RED predicted greater Anxious/Depressed (β= 1.862, p < .001, 95% CI [1.266, 2.458) and Withdrawn/Depressed (β= 1.144, p < .001, 95% CI [0.548, 1.739]) symptoms in the total sample. Stratified models revealed that past-year RED significantly predicted greater Anxious/Depressed symptoms in Black youth (β= 1.876, p < .001, 95% CI [1.266, 2.459]), but not for Latinx youth (β= 0.796, p = .191). Alternatively, endorsing past-year RED significantly predicted elevated Withdrawn/Depressed symptoms for Latinx youth (β= 1.579, p < .05, 95% CI [0.241, 2.917]), but the association was non-significant for Black youth (β= 0.173, p = .751).

Discussion:  Results corroborate prior evidence that experiences with RED are related to elevated internalizing symptoms across all racial and ethnic groups. However, results indicate differential impacts of past-year RED on endorsing specific internalizing syndromes among Black and Latinx youth, which is a novel finding in the literature. There may be cultural and cognitive processes (e.g., racial/ethnic group affiliation, rumination) specific to each group that explain the trajectory from RED to anxiety or depression symptomatology that were not accounted for in our model. Future research is needed to explore the mechanisms by which RED may exert differential risk for internalizing syndromes in Black and Latinx youth.