Factors That Contribute to the Mental Health of Black Youth during COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Theoretical Framework
2. Methodology
3. Results
3.1. Experience of Online Schooling
“Anyways, I’m in a bio class, and it is impossible to learn online. There’s just so much to it—there’s just so much to it, that not having a face-to-face, like raising my hand or asking the question, it is just a lot harder online. Just watching like prerecorded lectures and finding the motivation, it is yeah, it is definitely been stressful school-wise”.(Male, 20; born in Kenya)
“With COVID considering the online studies we take, I feel some teacher’s kind of just take advantage of it because they say we at home will for sure have nothing to do since it is online to give assignments in class”.(Female, 18, born in Cameroon)
3.2. Experiencing Lockdowns
“I think having so many lockdowns, not just for black youth, but in general, is really hard on mental health, right? Because you’re at home. You’re socially isolated. Especially for people who—like if we’re thinking about Black youth or the black population in general, certain people who do not live in safe home environments, or live in toxic households, or have parents who are abusive, or—situations like that, which black youth and black individuals would be more likely to be in, being in a lockdown probably could be, like physically unsafe for them, to be in that home environment for such an extended period of time, but also negatively impact their mental health”.(Female, 23, Born in Jamaica)
3.3. Recreational and Sports Closures
“I do know that in the basketball community and where there is a lot of young black youth that was harshly affected, in the sense that sport is a vector of change through these certain underserved communities and basketball, it was basically all they had or the main thing that was driving them to wake up in the morning and go play hard and yeah, I’ll do school also. At least they have basketball, and that was definitely one sort of aspect of life for these young black youth that I know took a hit and probably took a toll on their mental health as well.”(Male, 24, Born in Rwanda)
“You know what, honestly, one spot in which I thought it really would have an effect on black youth was by my house, where there’s the basketball court. And, you know, it is a predominantly black neighborhood; I go there. And when that was like closed down during the early stages of the pandemic, it was like—it was one of the more strictly enforced places like in the entire neighborhood. Like the playground was not nearly as hardly enforced as the basketball court, I felt like that was almost targeted to some extent.”(Male, 22, born in the Netherlands)
3.4. Experiencing Financial Burdens
3.4.1. Food Insecurity
“So yeah, I noticed throughout the pandemic I liked—I was not in a good place in terms of my credit but like just stuff happening. Well, financial instability. The food prices are going up. That’s been horrible. On disability, I make 1685, like after rent bills, and all that jazz. I just feel like—I feel kind of frustrated because I feel that, as a person with a disability, I should not be punished. I should still be able to have a good quality of life. That was a big problem for the second year of the pandemic because I would not have money for the last week or the last two weeks of the month. I’d usually just like—it was the summer, so I would usually just go to random places, and sometimes they’d be like giving out free pizza on [unintelligible 00:22:47]. I do not know if you go to church and like to eat a snack or something.”(Female, 24, born in Canada)
3.4.2. Precarious Employment and Housing
“But I feel like the pandemic affected several youths, and some lost their job, some lost their means of livelihood, and some had to—some even lost their homes, because of not being able to keep up with rent.”(Male, Born in Canada)
3.4.3. Barriers to Government Financial Support
“If you do not have access to CERB, then you have a lot of worries and, like, a lot of mental health-related problems, you know, stemming from, you know, worrying about your financial situations and that kind of precarity around that time. I can also see how—and then even with just getting vaccinated and not—and if you’re undocumented, for example, and being worried about, you know, are you going to be deported or detained.”(Male, 23, Born in Jamaica)
3.5. Experiencing Anti-Black Racism, Police Brutality, and COVID-19
“But yeah, in general, like for Black youth—and that was also like the situation with the Black Lives Matter movement and the George Floyd incident that happened in 2020 that has created a lot of stress for Black youth. You know, just like—like I remember the day after the incident happened, I would be scared, just to walk on the street and see a police car. [Laughs] I’m always so scared of, you know, “Oh, are they going to, you know, try to arrest me for walking or something?” I would just—it just caused me so much stress. I would stay at home as much as possible because I did not want any trouble or anything. So, yeah”.(Female, Born in Canada)
“And also, like, during the pandemic, there was the whole Black Lives Matter movement, the protests, and everything. And that was a very big moment as well. I know those protests that, like, were held here as well in Edmonton, and I know a lot of people were just fed up. I think the pandemic just accelerated all those emotions as well, because it is like, How many things are we going to deal with? Like, at least with the pandemic, it is—a lot of it is beyond our control, it is physical, and it is to do with our health. But with, you know, racism and with all the issues that police brutality and black people are facing, that’s obviously social, and it is due to other humans.”(Female, 19, born in the United Kingdom)
4. Discussion
5. Limitations
6. Implications for Policy and Practice
7. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Salami, B.; Maduforo, A.N.; Aiello, O.; Osman, S.; Omobhude, O.F.; Price, K.; Henderson, J.; Hamilton, H.A.; Kemei, J.; Mullings, D.V. Factors That Contribute to the Mental Health of Black Youth during COVID-19 Pandemic. Healthcare 2024, 12, 1174. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12121174
Salami B, Maduforo AN, Aiello O, Osman S, Omobhude OF, Price K, Henderson J, Hamilton HA, Kemei J, Mullings DV. Factors That Contribute to the Mental Health of Black Youth during COVID-19 Pandemic. Healthcare. 2024; 12(12):1174. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12121174
Chicago/Turabian StyleSalami, Bukola, Aloysius Nwabugo Maduforo, Olivia Aiello, Samah Osman, Oserekpamen Favour Omobhude, Kimberly Price, Jo Henderson, Hayley A. Hamilton, Janet Kemei, and Delores V. Mullings. 2024. "Factors That Contribute to the Mental Health of Black Youth during COVID-19 Pandemic" Healthcare 12, no. 12: 1174. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12121174
APA StyleSalami, B., Maduforo, A. N., Aiello, O., Osman, S., Omobhude, O. F., Price, K., Henderson, J., Hamilton, H. A., Kemei, J., & Mullings, D. V. (2024). Factors That Contribute to the Mental Health of Black Youth during COVID-19 Pandemic. Healthcare, 12(12), 1174. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12121174