The impact of two types of COVID-19-related discrimination and contemporaneous stressors on Chinese immigrants in the US South.
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2022-12
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The global rise of the COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by an increase in anti-Asian discrimination with potentially deleterious effects on individuals of Asian descent. In the present study, we examine how two types of COVID-19-related anti-Asian discrimination and other contemporaneous stressors independently contribute to perceptions of stress in a population-representative sample of Chinese immigrants in North Carolina, as well as the moderating role of ethnic identity on the association between COVID-related discrimination and stress. Analyses rely on data collected among participants ages 18+ in the Chinese Immigrants in Raleigh-Durham (ChIRDU) study who completed surveys in 2018 and during the COVID-19 pandemic (July-September 2020). We utilize ordinary least squares regressions to examine associations of two types of COVID-related discrimination (measured by changes in perceptions of being feared by others and racism-related vigilance) and contemporaneous stressors (measured by general COVID-19-related stressors and acculturative stressors) with perceptions of stress by respondents' pre-pandemic reports of ethnic identity. Controlling for sociodemographic predictors and other stressors, racism-related vigilance is significantly associated with higher perceived stress for Chinese immigrants who identify as completely Chinese. For those who identify as at least partly American, new perceptions of being feared by others during the pandemic are significantly associated with higher perceived stress. Acculturative and COVID-related stressors are independently associated with higher perceived stress for both groups. These results suggest that COVID-related anti-Asian discrimination aggravates the psychological burden of multiple stressors in Chinese immigrants' lives by uniquely contributing to perceptions of stress alongside contemporaneous stressors. The results also highlight the heterogeneous mental health needs of Chinese immigrants and hold important implications for intervention development in the community studied here as well as in other Chinese communities in the US.
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Stolte, Allison, Gabriela A Nagy, Chanel Zhan, Ted Mouw and M Giovanna Merli (2022). The impact of two types of COVID-19-related discrimination and contemporaneous stressors on Chinese immigrants in the US South. SSM. Mental health, 2. p. 100159. 10.1016/j.ssmmh.2022.100159 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/26446.
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M. Giovanna Merli
M. Giovanna Merli is Professor of Public Policy, Sociology, and Global Health at Duke University. She serves as Director of the Duke Population Research Center and Associate Director of the Duke University Population Research Institute.
Her research applies demographic methods to the study of fertility and mortality in China and Vietnam, while also advancing innovative approaches for studying hidden and hard-to-reach populations. For example, she has employed network sampling and the collection of ego-centric network data in population-representative surveys to explore the behavioral and relational determinants of HIV and other sexually transmitted disease transmission in China and South Africa, immigrant health, and social integration among Chinese immigrant populations in the United States, France, and Sub-Saharan Africa as well as African immigrants in the US. Her current work includes a project linking origin and destination contexts to examine the health of immigrants from Ghana to the U.S. She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Demography, the flagship journal of the Population Association of America.
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