Resilience in Black Americans Spans Multiple Levels of Support

In the town that Olutosin Adesogan grew up in, disparities were on full display. On one side of Main Street, a plethora of parks, doctors’ offices, grocery stores. On the other, concrete and convenience stores reigned supreme.  

“You can really see the effects of systemic racism,” Adesogan said. “They are kind of in your face in this town.” 

As a result, Adesogan saw health as something that’s not simply determined at the individual level. It’s baked into history, shaped by the environment that people live in and what they’re able to access. So when she pursued psychology, she sought out research and mentors that fostered the same approach. In her latest paper, published in Clinical Psychological Science, Adesogan took a multisystemic approach to resilience—the ability of people to push through hardships and oppressive systems. 

“Sometimes when we talk about resilience, it almost puts the onus for managing stress on the individual, especially in psychology,” she said. “And I think, from my research and from my point of view, resilience is more about acknowledging the resources and strengths and supports that people do use to survive and thrive in toxic waters.” 

Adesogan and her colleagues examined a large longitudinal dataset, featuring 692 Black adults living in rural areas in the Southeastern United States. The data were drawn from a randomized controlled trial of the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) program, a family-focused intervention that helps African Americans thrive (Barton et al., 2018). The data are self-reported by the participating families and stretch for over a decade, resulting in a rich dataset on resilience. 

For the analysis, the team looked at factors that could promote resilience in Black American families at three system levels: individual, a person’s spiritual and/or religious beliefs; relational, someone’s romantic partner and social circle; and community, broader neighborhood support. The new research assessed the potential influence of these factors on depressive symptoms, sleep, and overall health, as well as how these health measures changed over time. The influence of these resilience factors was first analyzed individually, then at a multisystem level. 

Notably, the authors found that the examined factors not only promoted better health on their own but also accumulated across multiple levels, contributing to what they called “additive effects.” For instance, people who were more spiritual/religious—and had more social support from friends and family—had less sleep problems. Participants also had lower depressive symptoms, which decreased over time, when support existed at all three levels. Researchers did not see additive effects for general health but found that it was especially linked to neighborhood support. 

Velma McBride Murry, a human development and community psychologist at Vanderbilt University who was involved in previous work with the ProSAAF program, has seen similar multilevel effects in her own research. She explains that individual, family, and community interactions often intersect, even though they’re treated as separate entities. For instance, church attendance serves a protective function on many levels: It’s a source of spirituality/religiosity, provides resources, and can help individuals expand their relationships and social support networks.  

“These boundaries don’t exist as clearly as our analysis allows us to think,” she said. “They’re really overlapping and intersectional processes that have reciprocal feedback.” 

Further understanding how these factors interact could help psychologists develop stronger interventions, in Black American families and beyond. “It was really interesting to see [a study] use an existing dataset to show that these protective factors work together,” said APS Fellow Ann Masten, a professor of child development at the University of Minnesota. The next steps, she added, would be to dig into the complexity and pursue more multidisciplinary work, engaging expertise from different fields like statistics, sociology, and more.  

“We’re going to need better methods of analysis to deal with the complexity of human lives,” Masten said. “Resilience depends on supports and processes that span multiple system levels and continually change over time.” 

Other factors beyond the ones examined in this study could also help develop more proactive approaches to mental health. For Black Americans, Murry points out that resistance—racial socialization that prepares children to understand racial biases, reject negative stereotypes, and speak out against injustices—should be considered in conversations on resilience. “We want to ensure that we are not missing opportunities to capture protective strategies that families are using to actually fight against oppressive systems and their structures,” she said. 

Adesogan echoes similar sentiments. Pushing through the stress from oppression may have deeper deleterious effects, she said. “I think maybe the biggest piece is how we, as researchers and psychologists, advocate for more systemic change.” 

Reference 

Adesogan, O., Lavner, J. A., Carter, S. E., & Beach, S. R. H. (2024). Additive Benefits of Individual, Relational, and Community Factors on Physical- and Mental-Health Trajectories Among Black Americans. Clinical Psychological Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026241266580

Barton, A. W., Beach, S. R., Wells, A. C., Ingels, J. B., Corso, P. S., Sperr, M. C., … & Brody, G. H. (2018). The protecting strong African American families program: A randomized controlled trial with rural African American couples. Prevention Science, 19, 904-913. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-018-0895-4