Racial discrimination and internalizing symptoms among Black youth: The moderating role of youth age and parental racial worry

Racial discrimination represents a pervasive source of stress that is associated with internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression among Black youth. Emergent research suggests that the link between racial discrimination and internalizing symptoms may be influenced by individual and family level processes, such as youth age and parental racial worry. Building from this prior scholarship, the current study examined whether youth age and parental racial worry uniquely and conjointly moderated the association between youth racial discrimination and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Participants were 189 Black adolescents (ages 11-18; 48% female; M_age = 14.43) and their primary caregivers (M_age = 42.75) who completed surveys assessing youth racial discrimination frequencies, youth anxiety and depression symptoms, and parental racial worry. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that racial discrimination and parental racial worry were positively associated with youth anxiety and depression symptoms. Further, results also demonstrated that the association between racial discrimination and anxiety symptoms was significant across age groups and levels of parental racial worry, except for older adolescents whose caregivers reported low levels of worry. Findings highlight the importance of considering how youth age and parental racial worry may intersect to exacerbate mental health concerns among Black youth.