Does parental racial socialization protect Black youth from the impact of racism on problematic substance use over the long term?

Abstract

Objectives: Parental racial socialization refers to the messages children receive about race from their parents. Little is known about parental racial socialization's long-term impact on problematic substance use or whether it can protect against adversities commonly experienced by Black Americans. We examined whether parental racial socialization reduces the risk of problematic substance use and buffers the impact of neighborhood disadvantage and racial discrimination on problematic substance use, with attention to the types of messaging.

Method: Data are from a sample (n = 825) of the Woodlawn Study, a community cohort study that followed Black Americans from Chicago from first grade into midlife (55.3% female), with data collected at ages 6, 16, 32, and 42. Adjusted regression models were run with multiple imputation accounting for missing data.

Results: After controlling for covariates, we found parental racial socialization messages about racial barriers were associated with a lower likelihood of meeting criteria for problematic substance use in midlife (adjusted odds ratio = 0.45, 95% CI [0.22, 0.93]). While racial discrimination and neighborhood disadvantage were statistically significant predictors of problematic substance use in unadjusted models, neither was statistically significant in adjusted models. Neither the interaction term between parental racial socialization and personally mediated racism nor the interaction term between parental racial socialization and neighborhood disadvantage was statistically significant.

Conclusions: Our study suggests the promise of parental racial socialization messages about racial barriers to prevent and reduce the risk of problematic substance use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).