Racism, racial discrimination, and trauma: a systematic review of the social science literature

Objective: The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic review of studies that examine relationships between racial discrimination and trauma in order to further understand the relationship between racial oppression and psychological functioning. Design: In this review, we describe the characteristics of 28 studies, identified by a comprehensive search strategy, including measurements of racial discrimination and trauma, as well as the nature of the reported associations. Results: Half of studies included in this review were published in the last 6 years. The majority of studies used cross-sectional designs and were conducted in the United States with adults >= 18 years old. African American, White, Latinx, and Asian populations were most frequently included in these studies. Of the 44 associations examined in these studies, 70% of the trauma symptomology outcomes were statistically significantly associated with racial discrimination. Significant positive associations ranged in strength, with the strongest relationships between racial discrimination and trauma occurring in studies examining veteran populations and moderate relationships among these variables in non-veteran, student populations. Conclusions: Our findings reveal that current research on race-based trauma seems to be limited by a lack of measures that capture the stress/intensity associated with race-related events, an inability to account for vicarious/collective/intergenerational experiences of trauma, and failure to control for non-race-based trauma.