Racialized Gender Stress and Mental Health Among Black Women: a Test of the Vance-wade Intersectional Suicide Risk...

The recent shift in Black women's suicide risk calls for a new paradigm focused on unique factors specific to Black womanhood. The Vance-Wade Intersectional Suicide Risk Model (VWISRM) was introduced to contextualize this unexpected spike. According to the VWISRM, for Black women, psychosocial risk factors, gendered racism, and the Strong Black Woman script (SBW) lead to racialized gender stress (RGS) which results in mental health outcomes which are established predictors of suicide-related behaviors.

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) was used to test for empirical evidence supporting the VWISRM. Our sample consisted of 418 Black female adolescent respondents who fully participated in data collection during Waves 1, 3, and 4. We ran bivariate analyses to examine both (1) what psychosocial factors of Black women are associated with SBW traits, gendered racism, and racialized gendered stress and (2) what mental health outcomes are predicted by SBW traits, gendered racism, and racialized gendered stress.

Our analysis showed having both lower scores on the SBW traits and experiencing gendered racism are associated with a PTSD diagnosis. Specifically, the analysis explained 30% of the variation in PTSD diagnoses among Black women. Having both lower scores on the SBW traits predicted anxiety, PTSD, and contemplating suicide, and having experienced RGS linked to depression anxiety and contemplating suicide. Importantly, there were no moderating effects among SBW traits and RGS on PTSD, anxiety, or suicidality.

Findings highlight important research and clinical implications for Black women's mental health. The Gendered Racism Intersectional Trauma model (GRIT) is introduced to better understand the breadth of mental health outcomes for Black women. Notably, our findings make a new contribution to the scientific inquiry of PTSD in Black women.