Exploring fatigue severity and sensitivity as indirect effects of racial/ethnic discrimination on mental health among racial/ethnic minority young adults

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background Although ‘racial battle fatigue’ has been observed as an important construct in the context of racism and racial/ethnic discrimination, there has been little empirical work focused on fatigue-related processes in this context. The current study examined fatigue severity and sensitivity as simultaneous indirect explanatory constructs in terms of the relation between perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and negative emotional health among racial/ethnic minority individuals. Method Participants (N = 1,324) were racial/ethnic minority adults; M age = 21.35; SD = 4.49 recruited from a large southwestern university between September 2019 through May 2021. Primarily they self-reported identifying as female (80.7%) and Non-Hispanic/Latino Asian (36.4%). Analyses Three independent regression models were conducted to examine how the simultaneous role of fatigue sensitivity and fatigue severity mediate the association between perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and three distinct facets of emotional functioning: general depression, anxious arousal, and emotional dysregulation. Results Greater amounts of perceived racial/ethnic discrimination were related to increased levels of fatigue sensitivity and fatigue severity, which in turn, were related to more depression and emotion dysregulation; larger effect sizes were evident for fatigue sensitivity relative to fatigue severity. For anxious arousal, only fatigue sensitivity exerted a statistically significant indirect effect. All models adjusted for age, race, ethnicity, gender, level of education, and subjective social status. Conclusion The present study offers novel empirical insight into the complexities by which perceived racial/ethnic discrimination is related to negative emotional functioning among racial/ethnic minority young adults.