The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among Black Women with Depressive Symptoms at a Federally Qualified Health Center.

While the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted Black American communities, there is a lack of empirical research examining mental health experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic among this population. This report examines the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and stress, depression, and anxiety among Black women. A cohort study with supplementary data was conducted among 45 Black American women with depressive symptoms participating in an ongoing randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based intervention (M-Body) at a Federally Qualified Health Center. Depressive symptoms, anxiety, and stress were measured at multiple time points before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. On average, anxiety [Pre-pandemic: 7.4 (0.5); Peri-pandemic: 7.0 (0.6); MD: -0.4 (0.5), p = 0.18] did not change substantially during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels. However, depression [Pre-pandemic: 19.7 (1.4); Peri-pandemic: 24.4 (1.5); MD: 4.7 (1.0), p < 0.01] worsened while stress [Pre-pandemic: 21.7 (0.4); Peri-pandemic: 20.5 (0.5); MD: -1.2 (0.5), p = 0.01] slightly improved. Individuals caring for children exhibited modest but not statistically significant elevations in pre-pandemic stress than those who did not. These disparities more than doubled during the pandemic for stress [MD: 1.9 (0.9), p = 0.04] and depression [MD: 3.8 (2.6), p = 0.16] but increased only slightly for anxiety [MD: 1.8 (1.0), p = 0.08]. These data indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted mental health among Black women with depressive symptoms, and those caring for children reported greater increases in depression, anxiety, and stress than those who did not during the pandemic. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03620721. Registered on 8 August 2018.

A Qualitative Examination of Perceptions of Mindfulness Among Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Americans: Implications for Cultural Adaptation of Mindfulness-Based Interventions.

Background: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are well-positioned to address health disparities among racial-ethnic minority communities, given their focus on stress reduction and potential for greater accessibility and acceptability than conventional mental health treatments. Yet, there are currently no peer-reviewed studies of MBIs in an Arab, Middle Eastern, or North African (MENA) American sample. Addressing this gap in the literature is critical for advancing integrative health equity, given the high burden of stress and high prevalence of stress-related health conditions among Arab/MENA Americans. Objective: The present study sought to explore perceptions of mindfulness among Arab/MENA Americans and identify potential cultural adaptations to MBIs for this population. Methods: 4 focus groups were conducted with 26 Arab/MENA American adults who had participated in an introductory mindfulness workshop. Participants were asked about their experience learning mindfulness skills, the usefulness of mindfulness for problems they face, the alignment of mindfulness with their cultural values and practices, and suggestions for adapting mindfulness programs. Qualitative coding of focus group session transcriptions was conducted to identify themes in the data. Conclusion: The participants in this study described experiencing high levels of stress and identified micro- and macro-level stressors related to their Arab/MENA American identity, including discrimination, exclusion, historical and intergenerational trauma, and protracted sociopolitical crises in their heritage countries. They viewed mindfulness as a potentially useful approach to coping with stress. At the same time, participants identified aspects of mindfulness that could be adjusted to better align with their cultural values and experiences. Potential adaptations to MBIs for Arab/MENA Americans were identified based on suggestions from participants and issues they raised while discussing cultural strengths, stressors they face, and perceived barriers and facilitators to engaging in mindfulness practice.

Disordered eating and emotional eating in Arab, middle eastern, and north African American women.

Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (A-MENA) American women are often subject to intersectional discrimination, and they have also not been traditionally recognized as a distinct racial group in disordered eating literature. No study to date has provided descriptive information on disordered and emotional eating A-MENA American women, nor has examined perceptions of widely used measurements of eating pathology in this population. The current study generated descriptive information among A-MENA women on two widely used measures of eating pathology, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and the Emotional Eating Scale (EES). Participants (N = 244) were A-MENA adult women were recruited via social media and snowball sampling. Qualitative findings provide potential sociocultural predictors of disordered eating that should be further explored, such as bicultural identity and family pressures/comments toward appearance. Secondly, themes from the EES-R indicate adding emotion of shame and considering identity-related stress. The current study provides prevalence data and future directions of research on widely used eating pathology and appearance attitude measurements for A-MENA American women.