Racial/ethnic discrimination and racial trauma: Concurrent evaluation among Black adults who smoke in the United States.

Objective: Although Black/African American (hereinafter Black) adults who smoke are a tobacco disparities population in the United States, little systematic research has sought to explicate how differences in the distinct experience of race-related threat are associated with established and clinically important smoking processes in one overarching model. The present investigation sought to bridge this gap and test perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and racial trauma in the context of one another regarding an array of processes involved in the maintenance and relapse of smoking behavior.

Method: Participants included 517 Black individuals who smoked cigarettes daily (≥ 5; M_age = 45.07, SD = 14.72, 51.5% identified as female).

Results: Results indicated that in adjusted models, perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and racial trauma were each associated with an increased risk of more severe problems when quitting smoking as well as somatic symptoms and harmful consequences in smoking abstinence expectancies. For perceived barriers to quitting and negative mood abstinence expectancies, only racial trauma exerted a statistically significant main effect. In contrast, there was a statistically significant main effect only for perceived racial/ethnic discrimination for positive smoking abstinence expectancies, such that greater perceived racial/ethnic discrimination was associated with less positive beliefs about the consequences of abstinence (e.g., positive affect).

Conclusion: Overall, the present investigation indicated that both perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and racial trauma were relatively consistent and impactful explanatory variables for several clinically significant smoking processes, even in the context of one another, among Black adults who smoke in the United States. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).