Document text
Principal Investigator: Laura Kathleen Clary
Organization: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $655,853
Funding agency: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
ABSTRACT. Systemic racism exposes Black and Latinx adolescents to a range of traumatic stressors,
including publicized instances of police brutality toward Black people, stressful personal interactions with
hostile police officers, and oppressive immigration policies. The combination of systemic racism and the
coronavirus-19 pandemic (COVID-19)--termed the “twin pandemics”—are placing Black and Latinx
adolescents, especially those in under-resourced communities, at particularly high risk for family financial
strain, food insecurity, school disruption, and illnesses and deaths of loved ones. Cumulative stressors during
the critical developmental period of adolescence increase risk for long-term emotional and behavioral problems
into adulthood; thus, it is urgent that we: (1) understand the impact of cumulative race-related stress on
marginalized adolescents during and after the pandemic and (2) identify protective factors that promote their
resilience and wellbeing. Researchers have theorized that one protective factor may be critical consciousness,
or the awareness of societal inequities and activism to promote social justice. We lack rigorous longitudinal
research, however, on the development of critical consciousness among marginalized youth, its association
over time with emotional and behavioral health (EBH), and its potential to protect again harmful effects of race-
related stress. The proposed longitudinal study will assess race-related stress, critical consciousness, and
EBH among Black, Latinx, and White adolescents in Baltimore. We will leverage participants and data from an
NICHD-funded trial with longitudinal data collected at four time points prior to COVID with ethnically diverse
adolescents in Baltimore City. We will augment this sample by recruiting additional Baltimore adolescents, for a
total sample of 650 young people ages 14-18, with approximately equal numbers of Black, Latinx, and White
participants. We will follow these young people over four years (until ages 18-22). Participants will complete
online surveys twice per year assessing race-related stress exposures, critical consciousness, and three
domains of EBH (emotional wellness, mental health problems, and substance use). We will conduct in-depth
interviews with a subset of Black and Latinx youth and, separately, with their caregivers to gain more insight
into how youth engage in critical consciousness/activism and its effects. Qualitative themes will enrich our
quantitative analyses on critical consciousness and its potential protection against the harms of race-related
stress. We will develop a Youth Advisory Board to engage input from young people in our target population at
all stages of this research. Using procedures effective in our prior work, we will also train young people to
conduct the qualitative interviews with adolescent participants to enhance trust and rapport. Study analyses will
be critical for expanding theory on risk and resilience among marginalized adolescents transitioning into
adulthood. Findings will also directly inform policy and intervention strategies to promote youth mental health
equity, including interventions to promote youth critical consciousness and social justice activism.
Terms: <12-20 years old><21+ years old><8th grade><9th grade><Address><Adolescence><Adolescent><Adolescent Youth><Adult><Adult Human><Age><Awareness><Baltimore><Behavioral><Black><Black Populations><Black group><Black individual><Black people><Black race><Blacks><COVID-19><CV-19><Care Givers><Caregivers><Cessation of life><Characteristics><Cities><Communities><Conscious><Consciousness><Coronaviridae><Coronavirus><Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019><Data><Death><Development><Disparities><Disparity><Emotional><Emotional well being><Enrollment><Equity><Ethnic Group><Ethnic People><Ethnic Population><Ethnic individual><Ethnicity People><Ethnicity Population><Exposure to><Family><Feels well><Financial Hardship><Funding><Goals><Health><Immigration><Individual><Inequity><Institutional Racism><Intervention><Intervention Strategies><Interview><Interviewer><Investigators><Latine><Latinx><Link><Longitudinal Studies><Low income><Measures><Mental Depression><Mental Health><Mental Hygiene><Methods><Modeling><NICHD><National Institute of Child Health and Human Development><National Institute of Children's Health and Human Development><Normal mental condition><Normal mental state><Normal psyche><Outcome><Participant><Personal Satisfaction><Persons><Phone><Police><Police officer><Policies><Policy Developments><Politics><Position><Positioning Attribute><Problem behavior><Procedures><Psychological Health><Psychological Well Being><Race><Races><Racial Group><Reporting><Research><Research Personnel><Research Resources><Researchers><Resources><Risk><Role><Sampling><Schools><Sense of well-being><Social Justice><Stress><Structural Racism><Survey Instrument><Surveys><System><Systematic Racism><Systemic Racism><Target Populations><Telephone><Testing><Time><Training><Trauma><Trust><Twin Multiple Birth><Twins><United States><Urban Community><Well in self><Work><Youth><Youth 10-21><adolescence (12-20)><adolescent mental health><adulthood><adulthood transition><ages><behavior test><behavioral health><behavioral problem><behavioral test><coping><corona virus><coronavirus disease 2019><coronavirus disease-19><coronavirus infectious disease-19><coronavirus of pandemic concern><coronavirus of pandemic potential><coronavirus with pandemic potential><critical developmental period><depression><develop therapy><developmental><disparity in health><efficacy trial><eighth grade><emotion regulation><emotional regulation><emotional wellbeing><emotional wellness><enroll><ethnic diversity><ethnic subgroup><ethnically diverse><ethnicity group><experience><financial adversity><financial burden><financial distress><financial insecurity><financial strain><financial stress><food insecurity><health disparity><health equity><high risk><high school freshman><insight><intervention development><interventional strategy><juvenile><juvenile human><long-term study><longitudinal outcome studies><longterm study><loved ones><marginalization><mental well-being><mental wellbeing><mental wellness><multidisciplinary><ninth grade><pandemic><pandemic coronavirus><pandemic disease><pandemic threat coronavirus><programs><protective factors><psychological wellbeing><psychological wellness><racial><racial background><racial origin><racial population><racial subgroup><racism><randomized, clinical trials><recruit><research on resilience><research on resiliency><resilience><resilience research><resiliency research><resilient><school disruption><self wellness><sense of wellbeing><social><social role><socio-demographics><sociodemographics><stem><stressor><substance use><substance using><theories><therapy development><transition from adolescence to adulthood><transition into adulthood><transition to adulthood><traumatic stress><treatment development><well-being><wellbeing>