%0 Journal Article
%T The Black
%A Blair Wheaton
%A Patricia Louie
%J Journal of Health and Social Behavior
%@ 2150-6000
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0022146519845069
%X The tendency for blacks to report similar or better mental health than whites has served as an enduring paradox in the mental health literature for the past three decades. However, a debate persists about the mechanisms that underlie this paradox. Drawing on the stress process framework, we consider the counterbalancing roles of self-esteem and traumatic stress exposure in understanding the ˇ°black-white paradoxˇ± among U.S. adolescents. Using nationally representative data, we observe that blacks have higher levels of self-esteem than whites but also encounter higher levels of traumatic stress exposure. Adjusting for self-esteem reveals a net higher rate of mood disorders and distress among blacks relative to whites, and differences in traumatic stress exposure mediate this association. In the full model, we show that self-esteem and stress exposure offset each other, resulting in a null association between race and mood disorders and a reduced association between race and distress
%K black-white paradox
%K distress
%K mental disorder
%K self-esteem
%K traumatic stressors
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022146519845069