Vicarious Racism and Links to Negative Emotions and Mental Health in US Adults: A Scoping Review

Vicarious racism, or second-hand/indirect exposure to racism, is a highly prevalent phenomenon linked to negative emotions and poor mental health. We performed a scoping review to summarize and analyze the literature on how vicarious racism is defined and measured, where it occurs, samples and study designs used, racial makeup of witnesses compared to targets, evidence connecting vicarious racism to negative emotions and poor mental health, and recommendations for future research.

We followed the Population, Concept, and Context framework for scoping reviews and searched PubMed and PsycInfo for relevant studies. Five reviewers performed study selection, screening, and extraction using Covidence. We reviewed 51 empirical studies published between 2014 and 2024 using adult samples from the United States.

There is a lack of consensus about how vicarious racism is defined and measured. The majority of papers focused on Black and/or Asian samples; a limited number included Latine samples. Most studies used a cross-sectional design. Positive associations between vicarious racism and poor mental health were observed, with few studies reporting null findings. The two most common recommendations for future research were: (1) identifying pathways from vicarious racism to mental health outcomes and (2) increasing sample diversity.

Comprehensive definitions of vicarious racism and gold-standard measures are necessary for the unified progression of knowledge. Increasing sample diversity in future research will lead to more generalizable findings. Identifying pathways from vicarious racism to mental health outcomes is critical for intervention and prevention among those most vulnerable.