Internalized racism and mental health among African-Americans, US-born Caribbean Blacks, and foreign-born Caribbean Blacks
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The tripartite model of racism includes personally mediated racism, institutionalized racism, and the less-oft studied internalized racism. Internalized racism - or negative beliefs about one's racial group - results from cultural racism that is endemic in American society. In this project, we studied whether these negative stereotypes are associated with mental health among African-Americans and Caribbean Blacks. DESIGN: Using secondary data from the National Survey of American Life, we investigated the association between internalized racism and mental health (measured by depressive symptoms and serious psychological distress (SPD)) among these two groups. We also explored whether ethnicity/nativity and mastery moderate the association between internalized racism and mental health among African-Americans and Caribbean Blacks. RESULTS: Internalized racism was positively associated with depressive symptoms and SPD among all Black subgroups. However, internalized racism was a weaker predictor of SPD among foreign-born Caribbean Blacks than US-born Caribbean Blacks and US-born African-Americans. Additionally, higher mastery was protective against distress associated with internalized racism. CONCLUSION: Internalized racism is an important yet understudied determinant of mental health among Blacks. Future studies should take into account additional heterogeneity within the Black population (e.g. African-born individuals) and other potential protective mechanisms in addition to mastery (e.g. self-esteem and racial identity).
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Internalized racism is positively associated with depression, anxiety, social anxiety, self-esteem, stress, and sleep disturbance among African Americans.
“Previous research on mental distress among AAs demonstrates a positive association between internalized racism and several psychological factors including depression [16,17], anxiety [8], social anxiety [18], self-esteem [19,20], stress [21], and sleep disturbance [22].”
From Internalized Racism and Mental Health: The Moderating Role of Collective Racial Self-Esteem (2024) · cites this paper as [17]
Experiences of internalized racism often intersect with multiple systemic oppressions that impact the well-being and quality of life of racially marginalized communities.
“Experiences of internalized racism often intersect with multiple systemic oppressions that impact the well-being and quality of life of racially marginalized communities [17,32].”
From Internalized Racism and Mental Health: The Moderating Role of Collective Racial Self-Esteem (2024) · cites this paper as [17]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 31 · Cited by 112
- Authors
- Mouzon, D. M., & McLean, J. S.
- Affiliations
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- Corresponding author
- Mouzon, Dawne M.
- ORCID
- Mouzon, Dawne M.
- Venue
- Ethnicity & Health
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2016-06-28
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 36-48
- ISSN
- 1355-7858 (ISSN-L)
- 1465-3419
- OpenAlex
- W2462264592
- Cited by
- 112
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 19.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Ethnicity and Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Keywords
- internalized racism, mental health, depressive symptoms, serious psychological distress, African Americans, Black Caribbean, nativity, mastery, racial stereotypes
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Black or African American, Child, Child, Preschool, Depression, Female, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Mental Health, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Self Concept, Stereotyping, Stress, Psychological, United States, Caribbean Region, Young Adult, Racism
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
