Biopsychosocial Pathways Linking Discrimination and Adolescent Health

Project Summary: Incidents of discrimination are part of the everyday life experiences of adolescents ofcolor, yet we know almost nothing about how discrimination gets under the skin to influence adolescent health.Although discrimination (the focus of the original K01) is a clear stressor in the lives of youth, with the COVID-19 pandemic, an unexpected and potent new stressor has been introduced to adolescents' daily lives.Moreover, the stark inequities in health and disease burden borne by the poor and racial/ethnic minorities inthe U.S. have been laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, and certain groups are encountering discriminatorytreatment tied directly to the pandemic. As such, the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the discriminationexperienced by adolescents both within and outside the context of COVID-19, could initiate or furthercontribute to health disparities tied to race/ethnicity and social class observed in adult populations.Adolescence is a key time to study these stress processes since the social-cognitive ability to recognizediscriminatory treatment emerges in the second decade of life, as do effective coping mechanisms for dealingwith major life stressors, such as those tied to the current pandemic. My proposed competitive revision targetsbiodemography and the pathways by which COVID-19 stress/stressors influence developmental trajectories ofadolescent health and well-being. In addition to integrating COVID-19 stressors into the biopsychosocial modeltested in my original K01 (Aim 1), I introduce two new primary aims for my research project as part of the K01competitive revision: (1) Document the extent to which COVID-19 is influencing all aspects of the daily lives ofadolescents and (2) Examine the extent to which COVID-19 is disrupting trajectories of well-being. To addressthese new research aims, I will leverage three waves of rich longitudinal data from a racially/ethnically andsocioeconomically diverse sample collected pre-pandemic (annually from 8th to 10th grades) with three newdata collection waves collected during the pandemic (11th and 12th grade). These data will allow me todocument how COVID-19 may be disrupting trajectories and psychological well-being, physical health, andacademics, the extent to which these disruptions are temporary (denoting recovery) versus long-lasting, who ismore likely to recover, and how relationships with important others (families, teachers/schools, friends) mightmitigate disruptions. Along with these survey data, I will integrate interviews to delve deeply into COVID-19 andthe lived experiences of adolescents during the pandemic as well as daily diaries to capture how dailyprocesses, social interactions, and well-being are influenced by COVID-19 stressors. Texas relaxed socialdistancing requirements May 1, 2020 without reaching goals for adequate COVID-19 testing, and it thusprovides an important backdrop for understanding how this global pandemic is compromising adolescents'trajectories in real-time. This will provide invaluable information for those designing and implementinginterventions for adolescents as they weather major life stressors and larger sociohistorical events.