Human Development, Culture, and Learning Sciences/Counseling Psychology, Department of Educational Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin.
Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Am Psychol. 2019 Jan;74(1):76-87. doi: 10.1037/amp0000344.
Americans of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in the United States have been historically understudied, in part due to limitations of racial classification systems that typically include MENA under the broad umbrella of White. As a result, enormous gaps in knowledge about health and mental health disparities exist, with broad public health significance. In particular, there is an urgent need to attend more specifically to MENA Americans' experiences of cumulative racial-ethnic trauma, which occurs at every level of their social ecologies. This article offers a conceptual model of cumulative racial-ethnic trauma to represent the unique experiences of the MENA American population. Traumatic factors at the macrolevel include historical trauma, pervasive institutional discrimination, and a hostile national context. These factors interact with one another and further impact microlevel traumatic experiences related to interpersonal discrimination and microaggressions, as well as struggles with identity and recognition. The deleterious impacts of these experiences may include a ubiquitous sense of insecurity, hopelessness, and alienation among MENA American individuals, in addition to more specific mental health and physical health concerns. It also compromises the overall well-being of the MENA American population in terms of belonging versus alienation, freedom versus restriction, and opportunities versus disadvantage. We discuss how the model can help to create a foundation for future inquiry and contribute to intervention efforts to find effective ways to support resilience and thriving for the MENA American population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
美国中东和北非（MENA）裔美国人在历史上一直研究不足，部分原因是种族分类系统的局限性，这些系统通常将 MENA 归入广义的白人范畴。因此，在健康和心理健康差异方面存在巨大的知识差距，具有广泛的公共卫生意义。特别是，迫切需要更具体地关注 MENA 美国人经历的累积种族-民族创伤，这种创伤发生在他们社会生态系统的各个层面。本文提供了一个累积种族-民族创伤的概念模型，以代表 MENA 美国人口的独特经历。宏观层面的创伤因素包括历史创伤、普遍的制度歧视和敌对的国家环境。这些因素相互作用，并进一步影响与人际歧视和微侵犯以及身份和认可斗争相关的微观层面的创伤经历。这些经历的有害影响可能包括 MENA 美国个体普遍存在的不安全感、绝望感和疏离感，以及更具体的心理健康和身体健康问题。它还损害了 MENA 美国人口在归属感与疏离感、自由与限制、机会与劣势方面的整体幸福感。我们讨论了该模型如何有助于为未来的研究奠定基础，并为干预努力做出贡献，以找到支持 MENA 美国人口的弹性和繁荣的有效方法。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
