Racism-Related Experiences and Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Ethnoracially Minoritized Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

ObjectiveDespite growing evidence demonstrating the association between racial and ethnic discrimination and traumatic stress symptoms in adult populations, the research among youth remains sparse. Drawing upon race-based traumatic stress models, and following the PRISMA-2020 guidelines, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to identify the state of the empirical evidence in the association between racism-related experiences and traumatic stress symptoms in ethnoracially minoritized youth.MethodScientific databases were searched to identify articles with ethnoracially minoritized youth participants under age 18 years old that examined the association between racial and/or ethnic discrimination and traumatic stress symptoms.ResultsA total of 18 articles comprising 16 studies (N = 4,825 participants) met inclusion criteria. Studies were largely cross-sectional, used nonrandom sampling strategies, focused on Black and Latinx youth, and were conducted in the United States. Furthermore, most studies were theoretically grounded and operationalized racism-related experiences as frequency of direct, personal, everyday discrimination. Few studies examined other dimensions of racism-related experiences. The meta-analysis demonstrated a significant positive association with a medium effect size, rpooled = .356, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.27, 0.44, between racism-related experiences and traumatic stress symptoms. No evidence of moderation by age, sex/gender, race/ethnicity, country, or recruitment setting was detected.ConclusionRacism-related experiences may confer risk for traumatic stress symptoms in ethnoracially minoritized youth. Attending to racism-related experiences is critical to improve the cultural responsiveness of trauma-informed services.