Adverse Childhood Experiences, Racial Discrimination, and Internalizing Problems among Asian Adolescents

The purpose of the current research study was to examine the relationship among Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), racial discrimination, and internalizing problems (i.e., anxiety, depression) among Asian adolescents in the US. We used a subsample of Asian adolescents from the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) 2018–2019 (n = 1,110; age = 14.73 years; 47.8% male). Results of binary logistic regression analyses revealed most individual ACEs were not significantly associated with anxiety and depression, but ‘family mental illness’ had a strong association with the condition of depression (OR = 5.39, 95% CI [2.17, 13.40], p < .001). Racial discrimination was significantly associated with both anxiety (OR = 3.70, 95% CI [1.98, 6.89]) and depression (OR = 3.47., 95% CI [1.74, 6.91]), even after accounting for cumulative scores of other ACEs and sociodemographic covariates in the regression models. The findings demonstrate the unique role of racial discrimination in developing internalizing problems among Asian adolescents in the US. Implications for practitioners and future research are discussed.