Abstract
Systemic racism can have broad impacts on health in ethnoracial minorities. One way is by suppressing socioeconomic status (SES) levels through barriers to achieve higher income, wealth, and educational attainment. Additionally, the weathering hypothesis proposes that the various stressful adversities faced by ethnoracial minorities lead to greater wear and tear on the body, known as allostatic load. In the present study, we extend these ideas to cognitive health in a tri-ethnic sample of young adults—when cognition and brain health is arguably at their peak. Specifically, we tested competing mediation models that might shed light on how two key factors caused by systemic racism—SES and perceived stress—intersect to explain ethnoracial disparities in cognition. We found evidence for partial mediation via a pathway from SES to stress on episodic memory, working memory capacity, and executive function in Black Americans relative to non-Hispanic White Americans. Additionally, we found that stress partially mediated the ethnoracial disparities in working memory updating for lower SES Black and Hispanic Americans relative to non-Hispanic White Americans, showing that higher SES can sometimes reduce the negative effects stress has on these disparities in some cognitive domains. Overall, these findings suggest that multiple pathways exist in which lower SES creates a stressful environment to impact ethnoracial disparities cognition. These pathways differ depending on the specific ethnoracial category and cognitive domain. The present results may offer insight into strategies to help mitigate the late-life risk for neurocognitive disorders in ethnoracial minorities.
Highlights
The daily discriminatory actions caused by systemic racism sustain disadvantages and disparities for ethnoracial minorities across different aspects of society (Johnson, 2020), including the work industry (Offermann et al, 2014), healthcare system (Williams et al, 2019), and criminal justice system (Hetey & Eberhardt, 2018)
Non-Hispanic White Americans and Hispanic Americans reported a higher socioeco‐ nomic status (SES) than Black Americans (p < 0.001), but non-Hispanic White Americans did not differ from Hispanic Americans (p = 0.14)
The present study revealed that, at least in this sample of Black Americans, cognitive disparities could be quite prominent in this age range
Summary
The daily discriminatory actions caused by systemic racism sustain disadvantages and disparities for ethnoracial minorities across different aspects of society (Johnson, 2020), including the work industry (Offermann et al, 2014), healthcare system (Williams et al, 2019), and criminal justice system (Hetey & Eberhardt, 2018). Research on ethnoracial disparities in health has amplified over the past decade (Kim et al, 2010), less research has explored how certain systemic racism variables (e.g., increased levels of stress, lower educational opportunities, lower income) influence young adults’ cognition (Bair & Steele, 2010). Studying this gap may help researchers better understand how racism-related experiences often faced by ethnoracial minorities early in adulthood impact long-term or later life cognitive impairments often found relative to non-Hispanic White Americans. Exploring such cognitive disparities related to systemic racism in young adulthood may shed light on developing preventative interventions for cognitive impairments later in life
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