The increasing mental health risk among people of color is borne out by tragic numbers. For example, between 1991 and 2017, suicide attempts among Black adolescents increased whereas attempts among white youth decreased. Shauna M. Cooper says racialized contexts, social media, and—more recently—the COVID-19 pandemic can affect development and so have potential implications for the wellbeing of youth of color. Cooper is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and director of the Strengths, Assets, and Resilience (StAR) Research Lab. Her research focuses on how race-related experiences and inequities are related to the well-being of racially and culturally diverse children and families, particularly with regard to the individual and interactive influences of family, school, and community contexts.
On November 30, 2021, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, hosted a virtual presentation by Cooper as part of its Science by the Slice series (video and curated live tweets are below). In starting off her talk, Cooper said that her presentation represents the culmination of more than a decade's worth of work, but that starting in 2019 there was a shift in the intensification and exacerbation of long-standing inequities.
One key component of Cooper's talk was defining resilience as a dynamic process: It exists between a person and their social and contextual environment, extending beyond the individual, and so means that one's resources for resilience can be depleted, replenished, and renewed.
"Race-Related Experiences and Well-Being "
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