Asian American mental health amidst COVID-19 anti-Asian racism: Internalized racism and generational status as moderators

ABSTRACT

In a national sample of 565 Asian Americans, this study investigates whether direct experiences of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) racism or vicarious exposure (e.g., witnessing, news reports, videos, and stories) of others experiencing COVID-19 racism lead to adverse mental health outcomes above and beyond the impact of general COVID-19 stressors. We used moderated moderation models to test our hypotheses of main effects and three-way interaction effects using the PROCESS Macro in SPSS (Hayes, 2017). Our results showed that both direct and vicarious experience of COVID-related racism significantly and positively predicted depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms, above and beyond the impact of general COVID-related stressors. In addition, the three-way interaction of COVID-related racism, internalized racism, and generational status was significant in three out of four models. There was a significant interaction effect such that higher levels of internalized racism mitigated the strength of the relation of COVID-related direct and vicarious racism on depression and anxiety symptoms for 1.5 and 2nd+ generation Asian Americans. For 1st generation Asian Americans, internalized racism exacerbated the impact of vicarious COVID-related racism on somatic symptoms. Our findings revealed the nature of how immigration generational status and internalized racism moderated the relations between COVID-related racism and psychological wellbeing for Asian Americans during a public health crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement What is the public significance of this article?-The study shows that direct and vicarious COVID-19-related racism was detrimental to Asian Americans' mental health. Additionally, the study revealed that the risk for adverse mental health outcomes depends on internalized racism beliefs and generational status, jointly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)