Investigating the intergenerational stress buffering effects of ethnic-racial identity in disaster-exposed parents and their children

Disasters are a significant source of stress for parents, and people of color (POC) are disproportionately negatively impacted. Identifying protective factors is a necessary step toward promoting resilience and recovery in POC. Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) may protect against psychological stress for disaster-exposed POC.

The purpose of this study was to identify how families of color (FOC) were affected by a disaster and evaluate ERI as a protective factor for POC and their children. It was hypothesized that FOC would report greater distress compared to White families and that ERI would mitigate distress in FOC. Parents (N = 218) exposed to a hurricane reported on their family’s hurricane experiences, ERI, and parent and child psychological functioning.

FOC parents reported greater hurricane-realted distress compared to White parents. ERI did not diminish the association between hurricane adversity and distress in parents. FOC children experienced greater distress compared to White counterparts.

Child and parent distress were positively associated with one another. ERI was found to buffer the relationship between parent distress and child distress, such that these symptoms were mitigated. These findings highlight the impact of disaster exposure on FOC and describe how ERI may diminish negative outcomes for these families.

This research was supported by general funds provided to the second author (B.D.) from the University of South Dakota. Department of Psychology, University of South Dakota, 414 East Clark Street, Vermillion, SD, 57069, USA The authors declare no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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