Racial discrimination, Intergenerational Cultural Conflict and Asian American Mental Health

PROJECT SUMMARY: The high rates and upward trend of mental health (MH) problems among young Asian Americans (AAs) are disturbing. Despite mounting evidence of MH crisis, AAs are severely understudied, exacerbating health disparities. Spikes in sociopolitical tensions and racial hostility in recent years may explain

the upsurge of the problems. Young AAs are under great acculturative as well as minority stress, including being the frequent victims of hate crimes, experiencing harmful objectification by the majority and other minority groups, and having their American identities questioned. This stressful environment has been

aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has provoked an unprecedented surge in anti-Asian racism and bigotry. There is a particularly pressing need for young AAs to identify ways to navigate these multifold pressures. This proposed study will extend an existing, highly successful longitudinal study of young AAs. The

Midwest Longitudinal Study of Asian American Families (MLSAAF) is an ongoing survey of Filipino American (FA) and Korean American (KA) families (786 youth and their parents; MAGE of youth = 15 at Wave 1 in 2014). Wave 4 in 2021 collected data from 615 young adults (YAs) (MAGE=21.5; 78% retention). The MLSAAF has

substantiated a troubling upward trend in MH struggles from 2014 to 2021 as participants transitioned to early young adulthood (YAH). We also uncovered racial discrimination and intergenerational cultural conflict (ICC) in the family as the etiology of this upsurge of problems. Minority and acculturative stresses are expected to

amplify as YAs build careers and families of their own. AA families remain interdependent during YAH, with unwavering expectations of familism, conceivably prolonging ICC among AA YAs. By adding 3 waves, the proposed study will leverage the rich and rare MLSAAF data to follow the original samples from adolescence

(ADOL) into their twenties to disentangle the complex and dynamic effects of family process, minority stress, and acculturation across the critical stages of YAH, including such pivotal outcomes as education, employment, marriage, and parenthood. Biomarkers (cortisol, C-reactive protein, and sleep) are added to investigate

physiological damage of chronic stress from racial/cultural minority status. The inclusion of biomarkers will significantly enhance our capacity to more accurately assess biological, physical, and psychological harms of chronic stress that individuals may be unaware of. This study will (1) determine the trajectory and etiology of

MH and physical health among young AAs as they transition from early ADOL to YAH. We will test (a) how AA family process (e.g., harmful vs. beneficial practices) is concurrently and longitudinally associated with ICC and the MH/health outcomes and (b) how racial discriminations are concurrently and longitudinally associated

with poor outcomes, (2) investigate how bicultural competence mitigates the negativity of chronic psychosocial stressors (i.e., ICC and discrimination) and (3) to examine the associations in Aims 1 and 2 with biomarkers as outcome measures and to identify harms of chronic stress that self-report measures may not capture.