African American mental health

INTRODUCTION: High rates of suicidal ideation (SI), suicide attempts (SA), and repetitive nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among some ethnoracially minoritized United States youth populations may be related to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) with structural roots. METHODS: Using the 2013-2019 Minnesota Student Surveys, we assessed associations of student-reported structural ACEs (parental incarceration, housing instability, food insecurity, and foster care involvement) with SI, SA, and repetitive NSSI within the past 12 months using multilevel logistic regression stratified by ethnoracial group (American Indian/Alaskan Native [AIAN], Hmong, other Asian, Black Latino, other Latino, Somali, other Black/African American [AA], Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander [NHPI], and multiracial), and adjusted for sex, grade, ACEs experienced within one's household, mental health treatment, and perceived safety...

IMPORTANCE: Mental and substance use disorders can interfere with parents' ability to care for their children and are associated with a greater likelihood of child protective services involvement to address child maltreatment. Parent engagement in psychiatric and substance use disorder treatment can prevent child maltreatment and family separations. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether caregivers with psychiatric or substance use disorders whose children were referred to child protective services received Medicaid-funded psychiatric or substance use disorder treatment...

For Black students in the United States, attending schools with a higher proportion of White students is associated with worse mental and physical health outcomes in adolescence/early adulthood. No prior studies evaluate K-12 school racial composition and later-life mental health. In a cohort of Black adults ages 50+ in Northern California who retrospectively self-reported school racial composition for grades 1, 6, 9, and 12, we assessed the association between attending a school with mostly Black students vs...

Monogenic disorders account for a large proportion of population-attributable risk for neurodevelopmental disabilities. However, the data necessary to infer a causal relationship between a given genetic variant and a particular neurodevelopmental disorder is often lacking. Recognizing this scientific roadblock, 13 Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Centers (IDDRCs) formed a consortium to create the Brain Gene Registry (BGR), a repository pairing clinical genetic data with phenotypic data from participants with variants in putative brain genes...

Executive functions (EFs) are crucial for academic achievement, physical health, and mental well-being. Previous studies using structural equation models revealed EFs' developmental organization, evolving from one factor in childhood to three factors in adults: inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and updating. Recent network model studies confirmed this differentiation from childhood to adulthood. Reanalyzing previously published data from 1019 children (aged 7.8 to 15.3; 50.4% female; 59.1% White, 15.0% Latinx, 14...

OBJECTIVE: Churches in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods serve as safe havens in many Black communities. Churches provide faith and charitable services but often have limited resources to address the mental health needs of their communities. This article reports on a collaborative effort, driven by members of a Black church, to understand mental health needs, coping strategies, and resilience factors in a community of socioeconomically disadvantaged Black Americans. METHODS: A community-based participatory research effort was established among a church, a community mental health organization, clinicians, and researchers to interview and survey individuals residing near the church...

BACKGROUND: While adversities across domains of finance, race, family, and life may operate as risk factors for initiation of substance use in adolescents, the influence of these factors may vary across racial groups of youth. Unfortunately, the existing knowledge is minimal about racial differences in the types of adversities that may increase the risk of subsequent substance use initiation during the transition into adolescence. AIM: To compare racial groups for the effects of adversities across domains of finance, race, family, and life on subsequent substance use initiation among pre-adolescents transitioning into adolescence...

BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption is associated with numerous negative social and health outcomes. These associations may be direct consequences of drinking, or they may reflect common genetic factors that influence both alcohol consumption and other outcomes. METHODS: We performed exploratory phenome-wide association studies (PheWAS) of three of the best studied protective single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes encoding ethanol metabolising enzymes (ADH1B: rs1229984-T, rs2066702-A; ADH1C: rs698-T) using up to 1109 health outcomes across 28 phenotypic categories (e...

IMPORTANCE: Greater understanding of the association between strabismus and mental health conditions across sociodemographic backgrounds may inform strategies to improve mental well-being in this population. OBJECTIVE: To describe the association of strabismus with mental health conditions in a diverse cohort of US adults. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cross-sectional study used data from the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program, an ongoing program launched in 2015...

IMPORTANCE: Facilitated telemedicine may promote hepatitis C virus elimination by mitigating geographic and temporal barriers. OBJECTIVE: To compare sustained virologic responses for hepatitis C virus among persons with opioid use disorder treated through facilitated telemedicine integrated into opioid treatment programs compared with off-site hepatitis specialist referral. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Prospective, cluster randomized clinical trial using a stepped wedge design...

Background: Research utilizing experimental tasks usually does not report estimates of internal reliability of measurement. However, modern measurement theories conceptualize reliability as sample, dependent indicating that reliability should be empirically demonstrated in the samples used to make inferences. Objectives: Test whether confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) estimates of reliability can be applied to a commonly used task measuring response inhibition (the Stop Signal Task) to predict substance use (alcohol and cannabis) and mental health symptoms...

Racism is associated with negative intergenerational (infant) outcomes. That is, racism, both perceived and structural, is linked to critical, immediate, and long-term health factors such as low birth weight and infant mortality. Antiracism-resistance to racism such as support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement-has been linked to positive emotional, subjective, and mental health outcomes among adults and adolescents. To theoretically build on and integrate such past findings, the present research asked whether such advantageous health correlations might extend intergenerationally to infant outcomes? It examined a theoretical/correlational process model in which mental and physical health indicators might be indirectly related to associations between antiracism and infant health outcomes...

BACKGROUND: "Super-agers" are adults aged ≥80 with cognitive performance similar to persons two to three decades younger. Characteristics such as larger hippocampal volume, APOE-ε4 allele absence, higher educational attainment, female sex, and lifelong cognitive stimulation are associated with cognitive performance compatible with super-aging. These findings are based on predominantly white research samples. Limited data are available on African-American super-agers. To fill this gap, we explored potential factors associated with super-aging in older African-American adults...

RATIONALE: Structural racism is a primary avenue for the perpetuation of racial health disparities. For Black Americans, both historically and contemporarily, the neighborhood context serves as one of the most striking examples of structural racism, with stressful neighborhood contexts contributing to the well-documented inequalities in psychological functioning among this population. OBJECTIVE: Thus, in this study, we adapted an intersectional-ecological framework to investigate the links between community stress and multiple dimensions of mental-emotional health for Black men and women...

IMPORTANCE: Upward mobility (via educational attainment) is highly valued, but longitudinal associations with mental and physical health among Black youths are less understood. OBJECTIVE: To examine associations of childhood family disadvantage and college graduation with adult mental and physical health in Black youths followed up into adulthood. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This longitudinal, prospective cohort study of Black youths from the state of Georgia who were studied for 20 years (ages 11 to 31 years) was conducted between 2001 and 2022...

BACKGROUND: Everyday discrimination-experiences of being treated unfairly based on background characteristics like race-is linked to poor physical and mental health throughout the lifespan. Whether more experiences of discrimination are associated with higher odds of being hospitalized in older African Americans has not been explored. METHODS: Community-dwelling participants from three longitudinal cohort studies (N=446, age 65+ years, with discrimination scores and ≥12 months of linked Medicare claims were included...

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of disease conditions that affect the world's poorest people in low- and middle-income countries. NTDs are associated with negative behavioural experiences, including discrimination, rejection and stigmatization, that predisposes those affected to mental health problems. Consequently, researchers have shown profound interest in elucidating the mental health burden associated with NTDs. To address pertinent issues in the burgeoning literature relating to the prevalence, assessment and correlates of mental health problems in NTDs, a systematic review methodology was used...

BACKGROUND: Screening for mental health problems has been shown to be effective to detect depression and initiate treatment in primary care. Current guidelines recommend periodic screening for depression and anxiety. This study examines the association of patient sociodemographic factors and clinic characteristics on mental health screening in primary care. DESIGN: In this retrospective cohort study, electronic medical record (EMR) data from a 14-month period from 10/15/2021 to 12/14/2022 were analyzed...

Law enforcement is a stressful occupation that places significant psychological demands on those serving in this role. However, little is known about the severity of work-related stress and psychological distress among law enforcement officers (LEOs) in North Carolina (NC). This cross-sectional study examined the severity of work-related stress and psychological distress among 283 LEOs in NC. The Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Operational Police Stress Questionnaire, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale, and the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Checklist were used to assess burnout, operational police stress, depression, anxiety, stress, and PTSD among LEOs...

Low-income women of color are disproportionately more likely to contract HIV, struggle with treatment adherence, and have compromised health as a result of HIV infections in comparison to White and more affluent women. The current study is a secondary analysis aimed at examining the association between stress, symptoms of depression, trauma exposure, healthcare engagement, and adherence self-efficacy, among low-income women of color with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)...