Evaluating the Spillover Effects of the 2021 Atlanta Mass Shooting on the Population-Level Mental Health of Asian Americans
People embrace by a makeshift memorial to shooting victims outside Gold Spa in Atlanta on March 20. Shannon Stapleton / Reuters file
Abstract
Six Asian American (AA) women were killed in the Atlanta spa shooting on March 16, 2021. This race and sex-based hate crime has underscored the urgent need to address the racialized and sexualized violence directed towards AA women and its impact on the broader AA community.
Objective:
To examine the effect of the 2021 Atlanta spa mass shooting on the population-level mental health of AA nationally, and for AA women in particular.
Methods:
This observational study proposes a differences-in-differences design to compare the mental health of AA and non-AA populations across the US before and after the 2021 Atlanta mass shooting. Data will come from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and the California Health Interview Survey. Outcomes include several domains of mental health status, depression, anxiety, and substance use. Secondary analyses will pilot novel approaches to measurement of vicarious racism.
Significance:
The proposed study advances our understanding of hate by measuring how vicarious exposure to violence against AA women undermines this community’s mental health.
Future Directions:
We envision follow up work to include primary data collection and use of qualitative/mixed methods to capture the voices of those most affected by vicarious gendered racism against AA women.
Field
Health Policy and Management / Health Services Research, Population Health, Primary Care Medicine
Team
(Graduate Students) Carlos Irwin A. Oronce, Rachel Banawa, Erin Manalo-Pedro, Michele Wong, Brian Keum, Gilbert Gee, Ninez Ponce
Carlos Irwin A. Oronce
Carlos Irwin A. Oronce, MD, MPH is a Ph.D candidate in Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health and post-doctoral fellow at the Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System and the Division of General Internal Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. His work focuses on the role of the health system in improving population health, advancing health equity, and delivering better value in care, with an interest in Asian American communities.
Rachel Banawa
Rachel Banawa, MSPH is a Ph.D student in Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health. Her research focuses on examining mechanisms for achieving mental health equity among marginalized populations, as well as reducing Asian American and Pacific Islander health disparities.
Erin Manalo-Pedro
Erin Manalo-Pedro, MPH, CHES is a Ph.D student in Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health. Her work examines the role of education in furthering structural and cultural racism, anti-racist policies and mental health, understanding community-defined practices for healing, and methods for measuring colonialism.
Michele J. Wong
Michele J. Wong, MSPH is a Ph.D candidate in Social Welfare at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research focuses on the conceptualization and assessment of race and gender-based stressors among Asian American women in the US and its impact on mental health.
Brian TaeHyuk Keum
Brian TaeHyuk Keum, Ph.D is an Assistant Professor in Social Welfare at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin School of Public Affairs and Director of the Health, Identities, Inequality, and Technology (HI2T) Lab, where his work focuses on reducing health and mental health disparities among marginalized individuals and communities using an intersectional, contemporary, and digitally-relevant lens. His primary research focuses on examining oppression, specifically online racism and gendered racism, as social determinants that disproportionately and adversely impact the socialization and well-being (e.g., mental health, substance use) of racial minority youth and emerging adults.
Gilbert C. Gee
Gilbert C. Gee, Ph.D is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health where his research focuses on the social determinants of health inequities of racial, ethnic, and immigrant minority populations using a multi-level and life course perspective. A primary line of his work focuses on conceptualizing and measuring racism, discrimination, and in understanding how discrimination may be related to illness.
Ninez A. Ponce
Ninez A. Ponce, Ph.D, MPP is Professor and Endowed Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health, Director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and Principal Investigator for the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). Her research areas in health disparities focus on promulgating health equity frameworks in research and practice, implementing population-based health surveys in diverse populations, and examining the intersection of social factors and health policy.