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Buffers of Racial Discrimination: Links with Depression among Rural African American Mothers

Erica C Odom1, Lynne Vernon-Feagans

  • 1The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Family Life Project Key Investigators, The University of North Carolina, The Pennsylvania State University.

Journal of Marriage and the Family
|July 31, 2010
PubMed

The current study examines racial discrimination as a predictor of depression in a sample of 414 rural, low-income African American mothers of young children. The potential moderating role of optimism and church-based social support was also examined. Mothers completed questionnaires when their child was 24-months-old. Hierarchical regression revealed that mothers' perception of racism was a significant predictor of depression even after controlling for a variety of distal demographic characteristics and environmental stressors. Significant interactions suggested the importance of psychological and social characteristics in understanding maternal depression. Specifically, high levels of optimism and church-based social support buffered mothers from increased depressive symptomology due to perceived racism.

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