Experiencing, anticipating, and witnessing discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for health and wellbeing among Asian Americans

Abstract

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic spurred increased racial animus toward Asians and Asian Americans (A/AA) who have since been contending with increased racism and violence. While some of the harm associated with this increased prejudice may derive from personally experienced discrimination, the COVID-19 pandemic has also been marked by an increase in vicarious exposure to discrimination as well as increased anticipation of discrimination, both of which may be taxing for the mental and physical health of A/AA. The goal of this study, accordingly, was to examine the effects of personal experiences of discrimination, vicarious exposure to discrimination, and anticipated discrimination on depressive symptoms, physical health symptoms, sleep quality, and sleep disturbances among A/AA. Results from our two-wave field survey demonstrated that experiencing and anticipating discrimination were associated with mental and physical health symptoms as well as sleep disturbances. Further, personal experiences of discrimination interacted with vicarious discrimination to determine physical health symptoms such that greater vicarious exposure weakened the relationship between experienced discrimination and physical health symptoms. These findings demonstrate the need to mobilize resources to combat the multipronged, negative implications of the recent rise in anti-Asian prejudice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

HEAR US: a qualitative study of racial discrimination in Boston’s Chinatown and empowering change from within the community

“…The health effects reported by our participants encompass emotional, mental, and physical health effects. Our results align with findings from both regionally and nationally representative surveys and demonstrate the negative association between discrimination and well-being ( 8 , 21 , 22 ). A cross-sectional study that surveyed Chinese and South Asian adults in Chicago found that the prevalence of depressive symptoms among these groups had doubled since the pandemic began ( 23 ).…”

“…Sleep disturbance and deterioration of sleep quality are the major physical manifestations of the stress experienced by participants during this period. A similar observation was made in a prior online survey among Asian American adults as well as in a longitudinal study among Asian American adolescents, demonstrating the association between racism-related experiences and poor sleep quality ( 21 , 26 ).…”

Stress vulnerability and resilience in children facing COVID-19-related discrimination: A quasi-experimental study using polygenic, brain, and sociodemographic data

“…Lastly, the generalizability of our findings needs validation through an independent dataset. For example, Asians, who have reportedly faced frequent COVID-19related discrimination [81][82][83] , represent only 0.5% of our study sample. This racial imbalance within the ABCD dataset could limit the representativeness of our results.…”

Difference in the risk of discrimination on psychological distress experienced by early wave infected and late wave infected COVID-19 survivors in Japan

“…Such associations between discrimination and psychological distress has been observed in several Asian general populations 14 , 15 . A recent longitudinal study demonstrated that experiencing discrimination was associated with psychological distress among Asian people during the COVID-19 pandemic 16 . A similar tendency has been observed in COVID-19 survivors.…”