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The Black Lives Matter movement has heightened US cultural awareness of the disproportionate burden of racial discrimination for Black Americans. With a special emphasis on Black youth, this review describes the health consequences of discrimination, including depression, anxiety, suicide, stress biology, immune system dysfunction, and cellular aging. However, as evidence documents, ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) reduces the mental, academic, and physical impacts of racial discrimination. A specific policy recommendation would integrate ERS into intervention efforts to reduce the health burden of discrimination on minority youth.

Suicide attempts (SA) among African Americans have increased at a greater rate than any other racial/ethnic group. Research in European ancestry populations has indicated that SA are genetically influenced; however, less is known about the genetic contributors that underpin SA among African Americans. We examined whether genetic propensity for depression and risky behaviors (assessed via polygenic risk scores; PRS) independently and jointly are associated with SA among urban, African Americans and whether sex differences exist in these relations. Participants (N= 1,157, 45.0% male) were originally recruited as part of two first grade universal school‐based prevention trials. Participants reported in adolescence and young adulthood on whether they ever attempted suicide in their life. Depression and risky behaviors PRS were created based on large‐scale genome‐wide association studies conducted by Howard et al. (2019) and Karlson Línner et al. (2019), respectively. There was a significant interaction between the risky behavior PRS and depression PRS such that the combination of high risky behavior polygenic risk and low/moderate polygenic risk for depression was associated with greater risk for lifetime SA among the whole sample and African American males specifically. In addition, the risky behavior PRS was significantly positively associated with lifetime SA among African American males. These findings provide preliminary evidence regarding the importance of examining risky behavior and depression polygenic risk in relation to SA among African Americans, though replication of our findings in other African American samples is needed.

Background: Genetic and environmental factors influence substance use behaviors in youth. One of the known environmental risk factors is exposure to life stressors. The aim of this project is to study the interaction between NR3C1and CRHBP, genes thought to be involved in stress pathways, exposure to stressful life events, and adolescent alcohol use/misuse. Methods: The sample included 541 African American individuals (ages 13–18) from the Genes, Environment, and Neighborhood Initiative, a subset of the Mobile Youth Survey sample from whom DNA and more extensive phenotypic data were collected. Participants were selected from high-poverty neighborhoods in Mobile, Alabama, with potential exposure to a variety of extreme life stressors. Results: A measure of stressful life events was significantly predictive of alcohol use/misuse. In addition, this association was significantly dependent upon the number of putative risk variants at rs1715749, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in CRHBP(P≤ .006). There was no significant interaction between NR3C1and stressful life events with respect to alcohol use/misuse, after taking into account multiple testing. Conclusions: These findings suggest that CRHBPvariants are potentially relevant for adolescent alcohol use/misuse among African American youth populations being reared within the context of stressful life events and warrant replication.

ABSTRACTBackground: Genetic and environmental factors influence substance use behaviors in youth. One of the known environmental risk factors is exposure to life stressors. The aim of this project is to study the interaction between NR3C1and CRHBP, genes thought to be involved in stress pathways, exposure to stressful life events, and adolescent alcohol use/misuse. Methods: The sample included 541 African American individuals (ages 13–18) from the Genes, Environment, and Neighborhood Initiative, a subset of the Mobile Youth Survey sample from whom DNA and more extensive phenotypic data were collected. Participants were selected from high-poverty neighborhoods in Mobile, Alabama, with potential exposure to a variety of extreme life stressors. Results: A measure of stressful life events was significantly predictive of alcohol use/misuse. In addition, this association was significantly dependent upon the number of putative risk variants at rs1715749, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in CRHBP(P≤ .006). There was no significant interaction between NR3C1and stressful life events with respect to alcohol use/misuse, after taking into account multiple testing. Conclusions: These findings suggest that CRHBPvariants are potentially relevant for adolescent alcohol use/misuse among African American youth populations being reared within the context of stressful life events and warrant replication.

Background: Depressive symptoms are common among individuals with alcohol use disorders and impact treatment outcome. Substantial overlap exists among the neurobiological systems proposed in the pathophysiology of depressive and alcohol use disorders; however, specific genetic effects contributing to risk for depressive comorbidity remain poorly understood.