Symposia
Prevention
Ariel R. Hart, M.S.
Graduate Research Assistant
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia
Ariel R. Hart, M.S.
Graduate Research Assistant
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia
Man-Kit Lei, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia
Justin Lavner, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia
Sierra Carter, Ph.D.
Professor
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia
Steven Beach, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia
Black youth routinely experience racial discrimination, with well-documented concurrent and long-term effects on their mental health, including depressive symptoms. Given the persistence and prevalence of racial discrimination across adolescence, it is important to consider how family processes may help buffer effects of racial discrimination. The Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) prevention program aimed to enhance protective parenting behaviors (PPB) among Black families living in the rural South through encouraging increased communication, establishing rules, and providing positive messages affirming youth Black identity. To provide an experimental test of the hypothesis that PPB buffers effects of racial discrimination on youth depressive symptoms, the current study examined indirect buffering effects of ProSAAF on children’s depressive symptoms through changes in PPB. Baseline data were collected from 346 families with children 9-14 years old (M age = 10.87), who were randomly assigned to ProSAAF (n = 172) or a control condition (n = 174). Analyses included the 295 youth (162 boys and 133 girls) for whom data were available on all study measures at baseline and a posttest (9.4 months later; M age = 12.08). Youth completed measures of racial discrimination and depressive symptoms, and youth and their caregivers completed measures of PPB (which were averaged within each family). Results indicated that ProSAAF was associated with a significant increase in PPB from baseline to posttest (β = .15, p < .01). In turn, PPB buffered the effect of racial discrimination on change in youth depressive symptoms (β = −.12, p = .01), such that although the effect of racial discrimination on increases in youth depressive symptoms from baseline to posttest was positive and significant among those youth whose parents showed little change in PPB (b = 1.55, p < .01), racial discrimination did not have a significant effect on depressive symptoms among those with greater increases in PPB (b = .07, p = .88). Further, this led to a significant indirect moderating effect of ProSAAF (IE = −.24, 95% CI [−.58, −.06]), indicating that ProSAAF indirectly buffered against racial discrimination’s effects on change in youth depressive symptoms through its effect on change in PPB. These results provide experimental support for constructed resilience in the form of change in PPB and suggest that family-based intervention programs can be a valuable tool to help protect Black youth from the harmful effects of racial discrimination.