Roxanne Prichard, University of St. Thomas
Sat 10 August 2024 at 10:58 am GMT-4·3-min read
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
Experiencing discrimination significantly harmed the well-being of Asian and Asian American college students in the U.S. during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s the key finding of our study, which compared over 6,000 survey responses from Asian and Asian American students who took the National College Health Assessment – an annual survey of student health behaviors – in the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020. Our study focused only on Asians and Asian Americans. Others have found that both Asian and Native American ethnic groups experienced the highest rates of COVID-19-related discrimination.
We found that Asian and Asian American students experienced high levels of stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic. By fall 2020, 9% had a loved one who had died from COVID-19, 7% reported experiencing discriminatory behavior because of the pandemic, and 61% had pandemic-related financial stress. Compared with 2019, Asian students in 2020 reported significantly more insomnia and psychological distress.
We then determined what factors most accounted for students’ poor mental health. We also tested whether the impact of these factors changed with the stressors of the pandemic.
In 2019, 11 factors were significant predictors of suicidality – that is, thoughts of suicide and attempts – in Asian students. Some of these factors are variables mental health professionals know to screen for: diagnosed depression, loneliness, and higher alcohol and drug use. But we found other significant predictors of suicidality – food insecurity, hours of screen time and experiencing discrimination – that are not often assessed in health settings. We also found variables that protected mental health. These included sleeping well, exercising and spending time with loved ones.
In 2020, only three factors were significant predictors of suicide – depression, loneliness and discrimination. The impact that experiencing discrimination had on suicidality also almost doubled, and there were no longer any significant protective factors.
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