Coping While Black: Comparing Coping Strategies Across COVID-19 and the Killing of Black People.

In the same year the world was thrown into turmoil with COVID-19, the USA also experienced a surge in attention given to the plight of Black people in the policing system, following the killing of George Floyd. Both the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing "pandemic" of police and White violence against Black people in the USA cause significant amounts of stress, disproportionately affecting Black people. Utilizing qualitative analysis of responses from 128 Black-identifying participants to an online survey, this investigation seeks to understand how the coping strategies of Black people in the USA compare between the racism-related stressor of police killings of Black people and the generalized stressor of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings demonstrate that while Black people use overlapping strategies to deal with stress, clear patterns exist with regard to differences across racism-related and non-racism-related stressors. We report important implications for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on Black people, cultural understandings of research on coping, and Black mental health more broadly.

An Investigation of Associations Between Race, Ethnicity, and Past Experiences of Discrimination with Medical Mistrust and COVID-19 Protective Strategies.

This study investigates the associations between three forms of discrimination, race and ethnicity, general medical mistrust, health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, and adherence to COVID-19 protective behaviors. Participants (n = 963) completed an online survey during May 2020, when stay-at-home orders and other government mandates were implemented in many states. Results indicate that everyday discrimination and healthcare discrimination were associated with significantly higher general medical mistrust, and healthcare discrimination and structural discrimination were associated with higher endorsement of health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. Higher endorsement of health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, but not general medical mistrust, was associated with significantly lower engagement in health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. This study helps to contextualize racial health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread impact of everyday, structural, and healthcare discrimination in society.