title: Internalized Racism and Past-Year Major Depressive Disorder Among African-Americans: the Role of Ethnic Identity and Self-Esteem.
abstract: Although a large body of research focuses on discrimination as a risk for depression among African-Americans, only a dearth of research focuses on internalized racism (i.e., endorsement of negative stereotypes of one's racial group) as a risk factor. In addition, no studies have yet to examine mediators and/or moderators of the relationship between internalized racism and depression. To this end, the present study examined the mediating and moderating roles of (a) self-esteem and (b) ethnic identity on the relationship between internalized racism and past-year major depressive disorder (MDD), in a nationally representative sample of African-American adults (N = 3570) from the National Survey of American Life. Results from this study revealed an indirect association between internalized racism and past-year MDD via self-esteem, but no indirect relationship via ethnic identity. Further, results show that both self-esteem and ethnic identity individually moderate the relationship between internalized racism and past-year MDD. Collectively, these findings suggest a need to further investigate mechanisms through which internalized racism impacts mental health and factors that strengthen and/or weaken the association between internalized racism and depression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL, 60607-7137, USA. djames21@uic.edu.
authors.forename: Drexler
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: James
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000208:ethnology*; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D063505:Racism / Q000523:psychology*; D012649:Self Concept; D012933:Social Identification; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Depression; Ethnic identity; Internalized racism; Self-esteem