Where I'm Livin' and How I'm Feelin': Associations among community stress, gender, and mental-emotional health among Black Americans

Abstract

Rationale: Structural racism is a primary avenue for the perpetuation of racial health disparities. For Black Americans, both historically and contemporarily, the neighborhood context serves as one of the most striking examples of structural racism, with stressful neighborhood contexts contributing to the well-documented inequalities in psychological functioning among this population.

Objective: Thus, in this study, we adapted an intersectional-ecological framework to investigate the links between community stress and multiple dimensions of mental-emotional health for Black men and women.

Methods: Drawing on cross-sectional data from 842 Black Americans from the Milwaukee area, we tested both objective (Area Deprivation Index; ADI) and subjective (perceived neighborhood disadvantage; PND) indicators of community stress as simultaneous predictors of negative and positive affect and the odds of psychological disorder (depression, anxiety) in multilevel models, examining gender differences in these linkages.

Results: Results showed greater objective community stress was related to lower levels of negative affect for both men and women and lower odds of psychological disorder for women specifically. Greater subjective community stress was related to higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of positive affect for both men and women and to higher odds of psychological disorder for women specifically.

Conclusions: Findings highlight the complex intersectional nature of the links between community stress and Black Americans' mental-emotional health. Specifically, findings demonstrate the pernicious psychological effects of perceived community stress and allude to Black Americans', particularly women's, active resistance and resilience to objective disadvantage, potentially through investing in social relationships in their neighborhoods.

Keywords: African Americans; Area deprivation index; Community resilience; Environmental distress; Institutional racism; Intersectional-ecological framework; Perceived neighborhood disorder; Psychological well-being.