Rural Black American men's lived experiences of the covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID pandemic was a socionatural disaster that comprehensively disrupted the daily lives of individuals, families, and communities in unprecedented ways. Emerging evidence indicates that Black American men living in the rural South were distinctively impacted by the pandemic;however, to date, no research has investigated the proximal and distal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural Black American men's health and wellbeing. The current study aimed to address this knowledge gap by exploring rural Black American men's lived experiences of the COVID pandemic. Specifically, this investigation focused on exploring how the COVID pandemic influenced men's (a) biological, psychological, and social functioning, (b) relational health (i. e. quality of relationships with family, children, intimate partners), and (c) socioeconomic mobility. Informed by the principles of critical ethnography and guided by van Manen's approach to hermeneutic phenomenology, seventeen men were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. Eight of the original participants agreed to be interviewed a second time approximately one year later. Using NVIVO, interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a three-level (e. g. holistic, detailed, selective) iterative thematic reduction protocol. Ten essential themes emerged (1) COVID Survivorship, (2) Agency vs. Altruism, (3) Persevere or Die, (4) Lifestyle Evolutions, (5) Familial Reorganization, (6) Adaptive Fatherhood, (7) Coupling During COVID, (8) Tertiary Support Systems, (9) Vocational Instability, and (10) That Little Stimulus Shit Ain't Nothing. Findings indicated that the COVID pandemic was a significant turning point in participants' lived experiences. For many participants, the pandemic evidence positive effects such as reductions in daily activity levels enabling them to enact changes in their contemporaneous living environments that improved their quality of life and enhanced their interpersonal relationships with family members, friends, and children. In consort with these positive changes, participants recounted how the pandemic eroded their socioeconomic stability, leading some to be unemployed or even homeless, and exacerbating pre-existing structural inequalities and health disparities. Key findings suggest that rural Black American men's differential experiences of the pandemic must be considered by all scholars, clinicians, or interventionists interested in developing efficacious pandemic-recovery interventions and policies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)