摘要：The COVID-19 syndemic, with a disproportionately higher impact on communities of color, will likely exacerbate the already existing health disparities in trauma symptomatology between People of Color (POC) and White Americans. Grounded in ecological theory and racial trauma framework, we investigated the racial disparity in PTSS with a large US national sample. Method: Data were drawn from the first wave of a longitudinal panel study. Participants (N = 2,019) closely mirror US demographics in terms of residency, race (59.7% White), gender (51.1% men), income, and educational attainment. The Primary Care-Posttraumatic Stress Disorder-5 was adapted to measure PTSS. Pandemic stress was measured using three top stressors from a COVID-19 stress scale developed by the international study team. Vicarious racism stress was assessed with the Vicarious Discrimination Scale. Using structural equation modeling, we tested whether PTSS between White Americans and POC could be explained by COVID-related and/or vicarious racism stress, controlling for sociodemographics and interpersonal trauma history. Results: We found POC reported higher levels of PTSS compared to Whites. By examining stressors of COVID-19, direct racism, and indirect vicarious racism as potential mediators, we found that PTSS racial disparity was accounted more by racism stressors than by COVID19 stressors. Additional fine-grained analyses for Hispanic/Latinx Americans (n = 283), Black/ African Americans (n = 279), and Asian American and Pacific Islanders (n = 123) were provided. Conclusions: Our findings highlighted the deleterious impact of the ongoing racism pandemic as a public health crisis in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic.
