Promoting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF): Building Resilience to External Stressors by Strengthening Family Relationships
4 - (Sym 23) Considerations for the Measurement of the Biological Embedding of Racial Trauma Among Black Americans: A Risk and Resilience Approach
Friday, November 18, 2022
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EST
Location: Plymouth/Royale, 6th Floor
Keywords: African Americans / Black Americans, Prevention, Resilience Recommended Readings: Barton, A. W., Beach, S. R. H., Wells, A. C., Ingels, J. B., Corso, P. S., Sperr, M. C., Anderson, T. N., & Brody, G. H. (2018). The protecting strong African American families program: A randomized controlled trial with rural African American couples. Prevention Science, 19, 904–913. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-018-0895-4 Barton, A. W., Lavner, J. A., & Beach, S. R. H. (2021). Can interventions that strengthen couples’ relationships confer additional benefits for their health? A randomized controlled trial with African American couples. Prevention Science, 22, 386–396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-020-01175-7
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; and deserves treatment considerations. This presentation will discuss a review of the current literature on racial trauma. Within this review of the literature, we will also discuss 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 will end this presentation by providing limitations of the RDoC approach, some additional research and treatment considerations, as well as future research directives in the area of racial trauma among Black Americans that build on the RDoC initiative.