Intersecting Race and Gender Across Hardships and Mental Health During COVID-19: A Moderated-Mediation Model of Graduate Students at Two Universities

Abstract

While the effects of the pandemic on the mental health of college students can vary across race and gender, few studies have explored the role of hardships and university assistance in these disparities, as well as how these disparities can manifest themselves differently across intersections of race and gender. We address this gap by using unique survey data ( n = 417) from two large graduate schools of social work, public health, and social policy in the United States. Using multi-group structural equation modeling, we explore how material hardships, academic hardships, and university assistance needed mediates the relationship between race and mental health, including depression and anxiety. We also explore how gender moderates these relationships. We find that Black students are directly related to material hardships and—through these hardships—indirectly related to increased depression, indicating mediation. However, material hardships did not mediate the relationship between race and anxiety. Furthermore, while academic hardships mediated the relationships between race and depression, as well as race and anxiety, these relationships were only significant for females, indicating moderated-mediation. Moreover, although university assistance needed mediated the relationship between race and depression for females only, university assistance needed mediated the relationship between race and anxiety for both males and females. We close with implications for policy and practice.

How does social support relate to emotional availability for learning during COVID-19? A multi-group structural equation model of university students from the U.S. and Israel

“…Here, universities could consider offering web-based or computer-delivered mental health support services, which have shown positive results in recent years (Davies et al, 2014). Moreover, while our model does not distinguish demographic characteristics, recent research has identified the disparate impacts of the pandemic by race and ethnicity (Jabbari et al, 2022), socioeconomic status (Aucejo et al, 2020), gender (Zolotov et al, 2022), and age (Qiu et al, 2020). Thus, universities should also prioritize the needs of these groups in the services they offer before, during, and after times of crisis.…”

“…SEM allows us to simultaneously test the significance and strength of multiple hypothesized structural relationships over time with both observed and latent variables (Kline, 2006;Muthén & Muthén, 2009). Similar to Jabbari et al (2022), we employed a four-step process in our analytic approach using Mplus (Version 8). • Step 1 included performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in order to create a valid latent construct of COVID-19 Concerns.…”

Health Experiences of Women University Students of Color and Women International Students in the United States During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings From a Transnational, Virtual Photovoice Study

“…Lee et al (2021) surveyed 200 undergraduate students, discovering a negative impact on mental health and calling for increased, accessible mental health support for students in the wake of the pandemic. Jabbari et al (2022) explored mental health at the intersection of race and gender for graduate students, calling explicitly for universities to respond to the disparities that have deepened for Black females due to effects from the pandemic.…”