Racial-ethnic disparities in psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: the role of experienced discrimination and perceived racial bias.

BACKGROUND: Research on mental health disparities by race-ethnicity in the United States (US) during COVID-19 is limited and has generated mixed results. Few studies have included Asian Americans as a whole or by subgroups in the analysis. METHODS: Data came from the 2020 Health, Ethnicity, and Pandemic Study, based on a nationally representative sample of 2,709 community-dwelling adults in the US with minorities oversampled. The outcome was psychological distress. The exposure variable was race-ethnicity, including four major racial-ethnic groups and several Asian ethnic subgroups in the US. The mediators included experienced discrimination and perceived racial bias toward one's racial-ethnic group. Weighted linear regressions and mediation analyses were performed. RESULTS: Among the four major racial-ethnic groups, Hispanics (22%) had the highest prevalence of severe distress, followed by Asians (18%) and Blacks (16%), with Whites (14%) having the lowest prevalence. Hispanics' poorer mental health was largely due to their socioeconomic disadvantages. Within Asians, Southeast Asians (29%), Koreans (27%), and South Asians (22%) exhibited the highest prevalence of severe distress. Their worse mental health was mainly mediated by experienced discrimination and perceived racial bias. CONCLUSIONS: Purposefully tackling racial prejudice and discrimination is necessary to alleviate the disproportionate psychological distress burden in racial-ethnic minority groups.

Invited Commentary: Undiagnosed and Undertreated-the Suffocating Consequences of the Use of Racially Biased Medical Devices During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

While medical technology is typically considered neutral, many devices rely upon racially biased algorithms that prioritize care for White patients over Black patients, who may require more urgent medical attention. In their accompanying article, Sudat et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2023;XXX(XX):XXX-XXX) document striking inaccuracies in pulse oximeter readings among Black patients, with significant clinical implications. Their findings suggest that this resulted in racial differences in delivery of evidence-based care during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, affecting admissions and treatment protocols. Despite the medical community's growing awareness of the pulse oximeter's significant design flaw, the device is still in use. In this article, I contextualize Sudat et al.'s study results within the larger history of racial bias in medical devices by highlighting the consequences of the continued underrepresentation of diverse populations in clinical trials. I probe the implications of racially biased assessments within clinical practice and research and illustrate the disproportionate impact on patients of color by examining 2 medical tools, the pulse oximeter and pulmonary function tests. Both cases result in the undertreatment and underdiagnosis of Black patients. I also demonstrate how the social underpinnings of racial bias in medical technology contribute to poor health outcomes and reproduce health disparities, and propose several recommendations for the field to rectify the harms of racial bias in medical technology.

Creation of an asynchronous faculty development curriculum on well-written narrative assessments that avoid bias.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic in parallel with concerns about bias in grading resulted in many medical schools adopting pass/fail clinical grading and relying solely on narrative assessments. However, narratives often contain bias and lack specificity. The purpose of this project was to develop asynchronous faculty development to rapidly educate/re-educate > 2000 clinical faculty spread across geographic sites and clinical disciplines on components of a well-written narrative and methods to minimize bias in the assessment of students. METHODS: We describe creation, implementation, and pilot data outcomes for an asynchronous faculty development curriculum created by a committee of volunteer learners and faculty. After reviewing the literature on the presence and impact of bias in clinical rotations and ways to mitigate bias in written narrative assessments, the committee developed a web-based curriculum using multimedia learning theory and principles of adult learning. Just-in-time supplemental materials accompanied the curriculum. The Dean added completion of the module by 90% of clinical faculty to the department chairperson's annual education metric. Module completion was tracked in a learning management system, including time spent in the module and the answer to a single text entry question about intended changes in behavior. Thematic analysis of the text entry question with grounded theory and inductive processing was used to define themes of how faculty anticipate future teaching and assessment as a result of this curricula. OUTCOMES: Between January 1, 2021, and December 1, 2021, 2166 individuals completed the online module; 1820 spent between 5 and 90 min on the module, with a median time of 17 min and an average time of 20.2 min. 15/16 clinical departments achieved completion by 90% or more faculty. Major themes included: changing the wording of future narratives, changing content in future narratives, and focusing on efforts to change how faculty teach and lead teams, including efforts to minimize bias. CONCLUSIONS: We developed a faculty development curriculum on mitigating bias in written narratives with high rates of faculty participation. Inclusion of this module as part of the chair's education performance metric likely impacted participation. Nevertheless, time spent in the module suggests that faculty engaged with the material. Other institutions could easily adapt this curriculum with provided materials.

REDUCING FAMILY SEPARATIONS IN NEW YORK CITY: THE COVID-19 EXPERIMENT AND A CALL FOR CHANGE

Child welfare agencies and family courts have long removed children from allegedly abusive or neglectful parents as an ultimate means of ensuring a child's safety. The theory that high numbers of removals are necessary to keep children safe, however, had never been tested-there was no mechanism or political will to do so until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. With the near-complete shutdown of New York City, the child welfare apparatus had no choice but to remove fewer children from their homes. Catastrophe did not ensue. Rather, the numbers tell a different story. Children remained safe across a range of metrics, avoided the trauma of removal from their homes during a global pandemic, and experienced sustained safety as the City began to reopen. This Piece argues that New York's child welfare system must learn from COVID-19 and significantly curtail its drastic measure of removing children from their families, which can cause substantial, often irreparable trauma to children. It uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to demonstrate the safety and soundness of reserving removals (also known as remands) for only the most extreme circumstances. This Piece focuses on the dramatic reduction of removals specifically during the pandemic;examines the traumatic, racially biased, and overused practice of family separation from a child's perspective;and calls for specific reforms within the existing system to reduce remands while protecting children's safety.

Racial framing of pandemic outcomes has conditional indirect effects on support for COVID-19 mitigation policies: Examining moral and threat-based mediating mechanisms

Two studies explored the intersection between the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing fight for racial justice. The pandemic has exacerbated existing racial inequalities in the United States in terms of public health and economic outcomes, and it is well-established that individuals higher in racial bias are less likely to support social safety net programs such as those meant to improve public health and reduce poverty. This is particularly true among individuals who perceive racial minorities as overbenefitting from safety net programs. Accordingly, the primary focus of the current studies was to examine whether framing the pandemic in terms of its disproportionate impact on minorities would reduce support for pandemic mitigation policies. In addition, we examine whether such effects were mediated through psychological mechanisms of moral outrage and perceptions of realistic and symbolic threat, and moderated by participants' racial bias. Participants' belief in a just world was included as a covariate given its established role in predicting many related social outcomes. Results suggested that racial framing interacts with participants' racial bias to affect policy support indirectly through multiple mechanisms. Broad implications regarding the relationship between racial bias and public support for a strong social safety net are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

All We Need Is One Mic: A Call for Anti-Racist Solidarity to Deconstruct Anti-Black Racism in Educational Leadership

In this article, we outline some of the vital measurements of racism and anti-blackness as a macro system in education. We contend that principal preparation programs have not explicitly prioritized anti-racist school leadership, while often resisting the possibilities of solidarity or "one mic" of knowledge to increase anti-racist dispositions. Considering the lexicon of whiteness as an assemblage, a racial discourse should be "supported by material practices and institutions," that prepare educational leaders to examine anti-blackness curriculum that have been embedded as a standard method. We also posit that theoretical understanding of racism as global whiteness from a post-oppositional lens and decoloniality that will challenge the way racism is currently referenced in educational leadership scholarship. Moreover, current global and decolonial research gives way for a new vision of solidarity by humanizing scholarly resistance that cultivates a vision of community that regards differences of knowledge across groups and investigates racist policies and practices in educational leadership programs.

"Let Nature Be Your Teacher": An Ecocritical Analysis of Outdoor Play in Award-Winning Picturebooks in the United States

Access to green space has always been a social inequity, but the recent global pandemic has exacerbated this injustice for lower-income families even more. Environmental access strengthens mental health, encourages exercise and healthy social habits, and reduces pollution. Many have argued that children not only need play, but they need play in outdoor environments for physical, sociological, and social development. And yet, researchers have reported a dramatic decline in children's outdoor play over the past three decades. As the COVID-19 pandemic ravages the world, the author worries about children's access to outdoor spaces. Researchers have argued that people in urban and minoritized communities lack access to quality outdoor spaces near their homes. When gyms, schools, and parks are closed, who gets the privilege of exploring natural spaces? The author set out to determine if recently published children's books depicted outdoor play more frequently than she had found in books as a teacher. Thus, the research question for this study was this: How many award-winning and honor picturebooks published from 1995 to 2020 include depictions of outdoor play, and what does a critical multicultural analysis reveal about these portrayals? The author begins with an overview of critical multiculturalism and ecocriticism, as they undergirded her analysis of 189 award-winning and honor books, and describe some of the literature that supported this critical content analysis. Then, the author describes her process and findings, followed up with a discussion of future considerations for children's literature readers as they examine depictions of outdoor play

The Untold Stories from COVID-19: The Calamity of Implementing Curriculum during a Pandemic

In March 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic wreaked havoc on our nation's educational system. Students, teachers, and administrators were forced to engage in a new remote learning model, which was unfamiliar. This narrative study draws on the lived experiences of six K-12 teachers in Southwest Ohio urban school districts. The data analysis was examined through the lens of the Science of Learning and Development framework (SoLD). Findings highlight the impact of COVID-19 on curriculum implementation. Results show that unprepared teachers could not pivot to online learning effectively, which may intensify the educational gaps and inequities among students in six urban schools in Southwest Ohio.

Visual Racial Literacy: A Not-So-New 21st Century Skill

After 2 decades and one pandemic, this millennium has brought a range of technological, educational, and social developments. Just think--social media apps, online instruction, and global protests for racial justice are rapidly becoming the norm. Therefore, a question that begs to be answered is, How are art teachers adapting their skills for this new world? Moreover, are the teaching practices of yesteryear still relevant in this changing context? What do art teachers need to know and be able to do to be effective educators in the 21st century? Joni Acuff and Amelia Kraehe come to these questions as art teacher educators, as mothers of young children, and as Black women. These identities provide an intersectional lens through which they have experienced much of the 21st century, including the pandemic of COVID-19 and the entrenched pandemic of systemic racism (i.e., White supremacism). COVID-19 may not be the source of injustices, but it has amplified and aggravated preexisting systems that produce racial inequities and racist feelings in the United States and other White settler-colonial societies. In this article, Acuff and Kraehe make the case that racial events demand attention in art teacher education and they show how they go about that in their own art teaching practice. They define "visual racial literacy," describe how to turn racist events into teachable moments, and discuss how they activate visual racial literacy to unpack events such as "The Insurrection."

Pods in Action: My Reflection Matters. A Virtual Village Where BIPOC Families "Unschool" Together

In 2020, twin forces inspired large numbers of U.S. families of color to look outside traditional schools for their children's education. First, as the COVID-19 pandemic caused schools to shift in and out of virtual or hybrid instruction, many parents looked for other options because they were concerned about keeping their children safe or were dissatisfied with the quality of instruction. At the same time, the racial reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd sparked a national conversation about systemic racism. For many parents of color, this included questions about whether it would be healthier for their child to be educated outside a system they viewed as replicating injustices. The My Reflection Matters (MRM) Village provided the answer that some of those parents were seeking. MRM Village is a nationwide, virtual network of parents, students, and educators, formed with a mission to "cultivate a space that provides the supports, conversations, and healing required to decolonize adults' beliefs and practices around learning and parenting in order to raise free people." Initially an in-person, local organization, MRM launched its virtual "Village" platform in August 2020 to connect and support primarily Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) families. By summer 2021, MRM Village had amassed a membership of more than 600 parents, students, and educators across North America seeking a radically different, identity-affirming alternative to traditional schooling. This report provides an overview of MRM, which has provided an innovative unschooling environment that provides a safe, affirming space, allows for parents and students to take ownership over learning, and frees participants from systems rooted in systemic racism.

Disentangling SEL: Advocating for Black Sociality, Questioning White Teachers' Emotionality

This article disentangles social and emotional learning (SEL) into its 2 constitutive parts--sociality and emotionality through a backward mapping of the School Development Program (SDP) developed by James Comer. This article argues that Comer's school-level intervention is a process model for how to achieve SEL outcomes given its intentionality toward making schooling a homeplace and its capacity to buildout conditions of Black sociality. The SDP also challenges how teacher preparation programs perpetuates harm to students of color by codifying white emotionality. This harm suggests a need to reimagine teacher preparation. This article thus concludes by recommending that teacher preparation programs should study more models and processes like the SDP and confront color-evasiveness.

Considering the Role of Social Media: #BlackLivesMatter as a Pedagogical Intervention to Decolonise Curriculum

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a drastic transformation to schooling for students throughout the world. During this period, a number of issues arose in our local, national and global communities, including the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests and rallies organised by #BlackLivesMatter. Living through and witnessing many social issues, coupled with the new and enduring pandemic, furthered our understandings of how young people were engaging with these topics without the structures of schools to support them. This article presents the results of a case study where youth aged 15-17 years shared their experiences and understandings about many social justice issues they were observing. The most significant learning around these issues for youth occurred informally through social media as opposed to in the classroom, reinforcing that schools are not ethical spaces from which to challenge institutional, structural and systemic barriers to justice. As such, this article discusses the potential for formal education to be transformed into an ethical and decolonising space to learn about and challenge injustice.

Guides as Mediators of Memory: On the Holocaust and Antisemitism -- 75 Years Later

This article deals with the relationship between the Holocaust and antisemitism, focusing on the events of 2020-2021. The point of departure is the fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, held under the slogan: "Remembering the Holocaust, fighting antisemitism". The event took place at the invitation of Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, in advance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 23, 2020). Content analysis of the speeches given by presidents and prime ministers from around the world reinforce the insights of the Holocaust and the association with current-day antisemitism. In March 2020 the COVID-19 virus appeared, and a wave of antisemitism surfaced with it. Analysis of contents that appeared on websites and social networks reveals vitriolic antisemitism against Jews as generators of the virus, being the virus themselves. This study utilized the method of anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926-2006), who established the interpretive approach to anthropology for analyzing culture contents. This, with regard to content analysis in general and to the contents of social networks and their contribution to antisemitism, in particular. Operation "Guardian of the Walls" in Gaza in 2021 further fanned antisemitism. Content analysis of websites and social networks portrays the Jewish soldier as a Nazi soldier and all Jews as murderers -- with all the Holocaust symbols and Holocaust language. The study seeks to examine whether and to what degree the educational system in general and guides of youth trips to Poland as mediators of memory in particular, are prepared for the educational challenge of eradicating antisemitism in the post-Holocaust era. The research findings show that the challenge still awaits us. Education is an essential instrument in the battle against antisemitism but the educational system, both formal and informal, is not prepared.

Spaces and Prospects for Student Empowerment in the Debt-Ridden Greek Education System. Future Possibilities for Change According to Student's Views

This paper presents a research project that was conducted in Athens, Greece in 2018 and 2019. The main objective of this project was to address students' views on Greek society and education in the context of the socio-economic crisis, their prospects, and their aspirations for educational and social transformation. The paper concentrates on students' views on education and discusses the role of schools in creating democratic societies. It provides a closer insight into possible ways of thinking about education, and food for thought for any attempts to deconstruct or initiate radical change in the education system. It looks at the potentialities and possibilities of deploying critical pedagogy as a mode of resistance for transformative and empowering education within the Greek education system. It concludes that during times of multiple crises, critical pedagogy is clearly relevant and has a responsibility to rethink its views and practices, build active resistance and engage in fostering educational and social change that can lead to a more just, equal and fair society.

When the Façade of the Normal Falls Away

The pandemic made us hold our breath for a return to "normal." But education in "normal" times involves race-based violence and class-based inequality that the pandemic simply made plainer to see. Reviewing the impacts of the pandemic and action for racial justice over the last two years, I show how the dislocation of the "normal" laid bare what Riz Ahmed has called "a 'normality' of entitlement and extraction.

State of the American Teacher and State of the American Principal Surveys: 2022 Technical Documentation and Survey Results. Research Report. RR-A1108-3

This technical report provides information about the sample, content, and administration of the 2022 State of the American Teacher (SoT) and State of the American Principal (SoP) surveys. The SoT survey was completed by 2,360 American Teacher Panel members, and the SoP survey was completed by 1,540 American School Leader Panel members. The American Life Panel (ALP) companion survey was administered to 500 ALP members in January and February 2022. The report also describes the teacher interview protocols and qualitative methods used for interviews with SoT respondents. The SoT and SoP surveys addressed teachers' and principals' well-being (e.g., job-related stress, depression, burnout), school climate (e.g., physical safety, teacher/principal voice, staff diversity, equity, and inclusion), teachers' and principals' working conditions this school year (e.g., instructional mode, hours worked, coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19] mitigation policies, beliefs about the teaching of race, racism, and bias), and teachers' and principals' careers as educators (e.g., preparation, retention, decisions to exit). Teachers were also asked about policies that they believed would be effective for recruiting, hiring, and retaining educators of color. Principals were also asked a series of questions related to their preparation to address political topics in their schools.

"Not Your Model Minority": An Inquiry on the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

The realities of COVID-19 have clearly revealed the myth of the model minority, a stereotype in which Asian Americans are seen as successful and high achieving in contrast to other Communities of Color. An ever-present, but sometimes seemingly dormant, anti-Asian racism in the United States is reflective of patterns in U.S. immigration history. Yet, neither is often taught in PK-12 education. In this article, the authors briefly outline the history of two major policies in Asian American immigration history and share an inquiry designed to help students explore the institutionalized racism that has defined who is a "good" immigrant.

Critical Race Pedagogy: A Taxonomy of Academic Activities to Craft a Critical Race Praxis in Higher Education

The authors present a taxonomy of pedagogical activities that can be used by teacher educators to foster a critical race praxis. The target audience is college- and university-level faculty committed to advancing equity in education. They first review the extant literature about critical consciousness in education. Next, they describe seven activities for more equitable teaching: fishbowl discussion, discussion of race vs. ethnicity, values continuum, discussion and writing communities, analysis of race in education policy, critical race journal, and racial autobiography. Additionally, the authors explain how these activities can be implemented in virtual classrooms in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-related social determinants of substance use disorder among diverse U.S. racial ethnic groups.

OBJECTIVE: Black, Asian, and Hispanic/Latino people are disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and were more likely to experience coronavirus-related racial discrimination. This study examined the association between pandemic-related stressors, including employment and housing disruptions, coronavirus-related victimization distress, and perceptions of pandemic-associated increase in societal racial biases, and substance use disorder (SUD) risk among Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, and non-Hispanic White adults in the U.S. METHODS: Data were collected as part of a larger national survey on substance use during the pandemic. Eligible participants for the current study were 1336 adults self-identified as Asian (8.53%), Black (10.55%), Hispanic/Latino (10.93%), and non-Hispanic White (69.99%). Measures included demographic and COVID-19-related employment, housing, and health items, the coronavirus victimization distress scale (CVD), the coronavirus racial bias scale (CRB), and measures of substance use risk. RESULTS: Across racial/ethnic groups, employment disruption distress and housing disruption due to the pandemic were associated with SUD risk. Binary logistic regression analyses controlling for demographic variables indicated CVD was associated with higher odds of tobacco use risk (AOR = 1.36, 95% CI [1.01, 1.81]) and polysubstance use risk (AOR = 1.87, 95% CI [1.14, 3.06]), yet CRB was unrelated to any SUDs. Logistic regressions for each racial/ethnic group found different patterns of relationships between stressors and risk for SUDs. CONCLUSIONS: Results highlight the significance of examining how the current pandemic has exacerbated racial/ethnic systemic inequalities through COVID-19 related victimization. The data also suggest that across all racial/ethnic groups employment and housing disruptions and perceptions of pandemic instigated increases in societal racial bias are risk factors for SUD. The study calls for further empirical research on substance use prevention and intervention practice sensitive to specific needs of diverse populations during the current and future health crises.

Racial Bias Beliefs Related to COVID-19 Among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders: Findings From the COVID-19 Effects on the Mental and Physical Health of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Survey Study (COMPASS).

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been increased reports of racial biases against Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander individuals. However, the extent to which different Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander groups perceive and experience (firsthand or as a witness to such experiences) how COVID-19 has negatively affected people of their race has not received much attention. OBJECTIVE: This study used data from the COVID-19 Effects on the Mental and Physical Health of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Survey Study (COMPASS), a nationwide, multilingual survey, to empirically examine COVID-19-related racial bias beliefs among Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander individuals and the factors associated with these beliefs. METHODS: COMPASS participants were Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander adults who were able to speak English, Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin), Korean, Samoan, or Vietnamese and who resided in the United States during the time of the survey (October 2020 to May 2021). Participants completed the survey on the web, via phone, or in person. The Coronavirus Racial Bias Scale (CRBS) was used to assess COVID-19-related racial bias beliefs toward Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander individuals. Participants were asked to rate the degree to which they agreed with 9 statements on a 5-point Likert scale (ie, 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree). Multivariable linear regression was used to examine the associations between demographic, health, and COVID-19-related characteristics and perceived racial bias. RESULTS: A total of 5068 participants completed the survey (mean age 45.4, SD 16.4 years; range 18-97 years). Overall, 73.97% (3749/5068) agreed or strongly agreed with ≥1 COVID-19-related racial bias belief in the past 6 months (during the COVID-19 pandemic). Across the 9 racial bias beliefs, participants scored an average of 2.59 (SD 0.96, range 1-5). Adjusted analyses revealed that compared with Asian Indians, those who were ethnic Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other or multicultural had significantly higher mean CRBS scores, whereas no significant differences were found among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander individuals. Nonheterosexual participants had statistically significant and higher mean CRBS scores than heterosexual participants. Compared with participants aged ≥60 years, those who were younger (aged <30, 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 years) had significantly higher mean CRBS scores. US-born participants had significantly higher mean CRBS scores than foreign-born participants, whereas those with limited English proficiency (relative to those reporting no limitation) had lower mean CRBS scores. CONCLUSIONS: Many COMPASS participants reported racial bias beliefs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Relevant sociodemographic contexts and pre-existing and COVID-19-specific factors across individual, community, and society levels were associated with the perceived racial bias of being Asian during the pandemic. The findings underscore the importance of addressing the burden of racial bias on Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities among other COVID-19-related sequelae.