(PS5-B45) Multisystemic Resilience Predicts Better Physical and Mental Health Trajectories Among Black Americans

Centuries of systemic oppression in the United States have led to Black Americans being disproportionately impacted by a number of stressors, leading to health inequities. Yet, Black Americans are very resilient and have survived and thrived in spite of this stress. This resilience is likely to stem from several factors across ecological levels, including the individual, their relationships, and their community, but existing work has yet to consider these factors within an integrated framework.

To address this gap, the current study used longitudinal data from 692 Black adults living in the rural Southeastern United States to examine the effects of individual, relational, and community resilience factors on trajectories of physical and mental health. Specifically, latent growth curve models were fit within an SEM framework to estimate the univariate and multivariate effects of religiosity and spirituality, romantic partner support, general social support, and neighborhood support on trajectories of depressive symptoms, sleep problems, and general health.

In univariate models, each resilience factor demonstrated significant effects on at least some of the health outcomes. Religiosity and spirituality significantly predicted lower initial levels of sleep difficulties and greater declines in depressive symptoms. Romantic partner support significantly predicted lower initial levels of and greater declines in depressive symptoms. General social support significantly predicted lower initial levels of depressive symptoms and sleep problems. Neighborhood support significantly predicted lower initial levels of depressive symptoms and sleep problems and higher initial levels of general health.

Importantly, many of these effects remained significant in the multivariate models. Initial levels of depressive symptoms were significantly negatively associated with partner support, general social support, and neighborhood support. Similarly, initial levels of sleep problems were significantly negatively associated with both spirituality and religiosity and general social support. These findings provide evidence for an additive model of resilience accumulation such that individuals with high levels of multiple resilience factors have better outcomes than individuals with low levels of multiple resilience factors or high levels of only one resilience factor.

Taken together, results from this study demonstrate how resilience factors across multiple ecological levels can independently and additively predict positive health outcomes among Black Americans. Specifically, findings show additive effects of resilience factors across ecological levels on initial levels of depressive symptoms and sleep problems and suggest that several resilience factors may influence change in depressive symptoms over time. These findings highlight the multisystemic nature of resilience among Black Americans and suggest that, in addition to systemic change that reduces the burden of stress experienced by Black Americans, multidimensional efforts focusing on the individual, their relationships, and their community may be an important next step in intervention and prevention science to promote health equity and well-being.