Description

While great strides have been made in research concerning the negative health impacts of racism, the majority of this research has focused on direct interpersonal experiences of racial discrimination — meanwhile, empirical research on other facets, such as vicarious racism, is still limited. Vicarious racism, or “secondhand” racism, occurs when hearing about or witnessing racism being committed against one’s ethnic or racial group through mediums such as social media, in the news, or from other people. Its pervasiveness, as well as its conveyance of social rejection or marginalization, make it a salient psychosocial stressor for anyone who identifies with the same racial or ethnic group as the victim. In light of current racial health inequities, as well as the continued perpetration and visibility of racism, the current study examines if the stress of vicarious racism exposure may be linked to substance-use as a maladaptive coping mechanism in Black and Latinx participants. An online study is utilized in order to measure Latinx and Black participants’ self-reported vicarious racism exposure and related stress using a short questionnaire, as well to measure their frequency of substance-use using questions adapted from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Additionally, participants are asked to complete the Scale of Ethnic Experience questionnaire, and asked about their feelings of social connection and support. It is anticipated that vicarious racism-related stress and frequency of substance-use will be positively related, and that both strength of ethnic-identity and feelings of social connection will moderate this relationship. Research on this topic has public health and policy implications to raise awareness of vicarious racism, and racism itself, as population-level health risk factors.