“But I Live Here Too”: Social-structural stressors, racial discrimination, and resiliency among urban dwelling black emerging adult men

Abstract

For many Black emerging adult men in the United States, social-structural stressors rooted in racial discrimination are daily experiences that place them at greater risk for poor health. Emerging adulthood is a critical life course period marked by greater experimentation with health risk behaviors. Although Black men's health vulnerabilities during this period are connected to their social-structural environments, investigations of these factors among noncollege sampled Black men remain limited. We conduced thirty semi-structured in-depth interviews to examine associations between social-structural challenges and social-structural resources for resiliency. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded using Dedoose web-based qualitative software. Through open coding, emergent concepts were connected across interviews and major themes were identified. We found three core social-structural stressors: (1) Racial profiling, (2) neighborhood violence, and (3) lack of economic opportunities, and three resilience factors: (1) Positive social networks, (2) community-based resources, and (3) safe environments that foster a sense of community. Collectively, these findings provide insight into developing structural- and community-level interventions tailored to bolster resiliency across multiple levels and counteract the social-structural challenges that young Black men face.