This study examined the role of depressive symptoms in mediating the relationship between early life experiences of racial discrimination and accelerated aging in adulthood for African Americans (i.e., prediction over a 19-year period, from ages 10 to 29) after adjusting for gender and health behaviors. Longitudinal self-report data over 7 waves of data collection from the Family and Community Health Study were utilized. The sample included 368 African Americans with usable gene expression data to compute accelerated aging, as well as complete data on all self-report variables including racial discrimination (Schedule of Racist Events) and depression (Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Version 4). Blood was collected by antecubital blood draws from participants at age 29. The proposed model was tested by path analysis. Findings revealed that high discrimination at ages 10-15 was associated with depression at ages 20-29 (β = .19, p = .001), controlling for depression at ages 10-15, which, in turn, was related to accelerated cellular-level aging (β = .11, p = .048) after controlling for gender, alcohol consumption, and cigarette use. The indirect effect of racial discrimination on aging through depression at ages 20-29 was significant (β = .021, 95% confidence interval [.001, .057]), accounting for 32.3% of the total variance. These findings support research conceptualizations that early life stress due to racial discrimination lead to sustained negative affective states continuing into young adulthood that confer risk for accelerated aging and possibly premature disease and mortality in African Americans. These findings advance knowledge of potential underlying mechanisms that influence racial health disparities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative aims to understand the mechanisms influencing psychopathology through a dimensional approach. Limited research thus far has considered potential racial/ethnic differences in RDoC constructs that are influenced by developmental and contextual processes. A growing body of research has demonstrated that racial trauma is a pervasive chronic stressor that impacts the health of Black Americans across the life course. In this review article, we examine the ways that an RDOC framework could allow us to better understand the biological embedding of racial trauma among Black Americans. We also specifically examine the Negative Valence System domain of RDoC to explore how racial trauma is informed by and can help expand our understanding of this domain. We end the review by providing some additional research considerations and future research directives in the area of racial trauma that build on the RDoC initiative.

The adverse impact of racial discrimination on youth, and particularly its impact on the development of depressive symptoms, has prompted attention regarding the potential for family processes to protect youth from these erosive effects. Evidence from non-experimental studies indicates that protective parenting behavior (PPB) which occurs naturally in many Black families can buffer youth from the negative impact of racial discrimination. Of interest is whether "constructed resilience" developed through family-centered prevention programming can add to this protective buffering. The current paper examines the impact of constructed resilience in the form of increased protective parenting using 295 families randomly assigned either to a control condition or to the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) program, a family-based prevention program previously shown to enhance protective parenting. We found that baseline racial discrimination was predictive of change in youths' depressive symptoms across the pre-post study period. Second, we found that parents participating in ProSAAF, relative to those randomly assigned to the control group, significantly improved in their use of an intervention targeting PPB. Third, we found a significant effect of change in PPB on the association of discrimination with change in depressive symptoms. Finally, we found that ProSAAF participation buffered the impact of racial discrimination on change in depressive symptoms through change in PPB. Results provide experimental support for constructed resilience in the form of change in PPB and call for increased attention to the development of family-based intervention programs to protect Black youth from the pernicious effects of racial discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).