Economic stress, economic activism and level of psychological distress in urban African-American adults

Economics has been linked to the health of communities and the health of individuals. Community psychology is concerned with both. This study examined the relationship between economic stress and psychological distress in an urban African-American population. Even though this is a well established link, relatively little has been done to understand how this relationship is manifested in African-Americans. Likewise, little work has been done to understand the psychological underpinnings of behavior directed at improving the economic condition of African-American communities, even though it has been well documented that the economic health of a community is associated with numerous social and health related outcomes. This study looked at both of these issues.;Several hypotheses were made: (1) There would be a significant positive relationship between economic stress and psychological distress; (2) Economic activism--a community empowerment strategy--would moderate the relationship between economic stress and psychological distress; (3) Economic activism would be negatively related to economic stress; (4) Psychological empowerment would be positively related to economic activism; (5) Psychological empowerment would be negatively related to psychological distress. It was found that, consistent with past research, there was a direct relationship between economic stress and psychological distress. However, economic activism was not shown to moderate this relationship. Economic activism was positively correlated with psychological empowerment as expected. Other notable findings were that income was unrelated to level of psychological distress and that education was inversely related to psychological distress. Possible explanations for the nonsignificant effect of economic activism as a moderator are explored. The findings are discussed in the context of the literature on African-American mental health, the economic stress literature and the community empowerment literature.