Anticipated Negative Police-Youth Encounters and Depressive Symptoms among Pregnant African American Women: A Brief Report

Abstract

The widely publicized violent encounters between police and African American youth have unknown consequences for the emotional and mental health of pregnant African American women. Since studies document the hypervigilance black mothers exert to protect children from violence and racism and findings also reveal the association between racial and gendered stress (which includes parenting stressors) and depressive symptoms during pregnancy, an examination of the effects of stress from anticipated negative experiences between black youth and police on maternal mental health is warranted. Between July and August 2014, 100 mostly low income pregnant African American women who lived in metropolitan Atlanta and were in their first and second trimesters completed the Edinburgh postnatal depression scale, selected items from the Jackson, Hogue, Phillips contextualized stress measure, and a demographic form. Bivariate and logistic regression analyses were conducted in response to questions that asked: (1) is the anticipation of negative encounters between black youth and police associated with antenatal depressive symptoms and (2) how does the presence of prior children, male or female, contribute to the association? For question 1, the results showed that anticipated negative African American youth-police experiences were significantly associated with antenatal depressive symptoms χ 2 (2, N = 87) = 12.62, p = .002. For question 2, the presence of a preschool-aged male child in the home was significantly associated with antenatal depression (p = .009, odds ratio = 13.23). The observed associations between antenatal depressive symptoms and anticipated negative policeyouth encounters have implications for clinical-and community-based interventions responding to the unique psychosocial risks for pregnant African American women.

Police killings and their spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans: a population-based, quasi-experimental study

“…Our findings illustrate the generalisability of small-scale studies 23,24,33 of mental illness after police violence in exposed communities and support recent calls to treat police killings as a public health issue, 17 given the improvements in population mental health that would be likely to accrue if these killings could be averted. Such interventions might be best applied as part of a broader reform package in the criminal justice sector, given growing evidence about how other elements of the criminal justice system (eg, mass incarceration) undermine population health in communities of colour.…”

Experiences of Racism and Breastfeeding Initiation and Duration Among First-Time Mothers of the Black Women’s Health Study

“…Second, we are not able to infer under what conditions women in the present sample experienced racism with the police. However, research has highlighted increased stress, specifically related to fear of police encounters for mothers of Black sons [51] and for pregnant Black women [52]. Pregnancy and breastfeeding are inextricably linked.…”

Neighborhood Perceptions Among Pregnant African American Women in St. Louis, Missouri, Before and After the Shooting of Michael Brown

“…The study cannot explain why the events may have led to differences in the percent of women reporting feeling unsafe, although there are many hypotheses around how events such as those in Ferguson, Missouri, may be related to changes in safety perceptions and police relations. 26,31,32 Finally, there is a wide range of time between when participants completed the survey and August 9, 2014, meaning some women took the survey just days before and others just days after, while some women were more than a year away. Given that the St. Louis community continues to struggle with disparities and the aftermath of these events, it may be that the experience resonated with participants even over many months.…”