Devin English

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Assistant) at Rutgers School of Public Health

While recent evidence has indicated that experienced racial discrimination is associated with increased depressive symptoms for African American adolescents, most studies rely on cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal research designs. As a result, the direction and persistence of this association across time remains unclear. This article exam...

Although the United States faces a seemingly intractable divide between white and African American academic performance, there remains a dearth of longitudinal research investigating factors that work to maintain this gap. The present study examined whether racial discrimination predicted the academic performance of African American students throug...

While evidence indicates that experienced racial discrimination is associated with increased depressive symptoms for African Americans, there is little research investigating predictors of experienced racial discrimination. This paper examines neighborhood racial composition and sociodemographic factors as antecedents to experienced racial discrimi...

Objectives: The effects of peer-based discrimination are especially harmful for adolescents given the heightened role of social feedback during this period. The current study aimed to understand the unique expressions of discrimination that adolescents experience between close peers and friends, as well as the daily influence of such experiences. M...

Many African American adolescents experience racial discrimination, with adverse consequences; however, stability and change in these experiences over time have not been examined. We examined longitudinal patterns of perceived racial discrimination assessed in grades 7 – 10 and how these discrimination trajectories related to patterns of change in...

Despite early optimism that the Internet would reduce race-related issues, scholars have observed that online racism is a significant threat to public health, much like its offline counterpart. This chapter provides a review of the current state of research on online racism and its impact on youth of color (children, adolescents, and young adults)....

Despite evidence showing rising suicidality among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) and Black adolescents, separately, there is scant research on suicide risk trajectories among youth groups across both racial and sexual identities. Thus, we examined trajectories of self-reported suicidal ideation and attempt and their associations with bullying amo...

Although suicide rates are stable or decreasing among White communities, rates are increasing among Black communities, a trend that appears to be disproportionately affecting Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) people. To understand the structural drivers and mechanisms of these trends, we examined associations between U.S. state-level r...

While Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) researchers have made remarkable strides in the treatment, management, and prevention of HIV/AIDS, one area of research related to HIV/AIDS remains woefully underrepresented in the scientific literature: suicide prevention. The risk of death by suicide among peop...

Importance Because of increased suicide rates among Black youth in the past 2 decades, there is a dire need for research on suicidal ideation and risk factors in this population. Objective To examine the direct and indirect associations between online racial discrimination and suicidal ideation through posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms among...

Adolescents’ heavy engagement with digital news and social media brings them considerable exposure to race-related content, especially during election cycles. We assess how well young people navigate that kind of digital content, using a nationally representative longitudinal study in which baseline data was collected during and after the 2020 elec...

Although health inequities among Black same gender loving men (SGLM) are well documented (e.g., chronic psychological disorders, HIV, suicide), there are few accessible, culturally affirming, and community-led interventions designed to reduce these inequities. The present manuscript describes the process through which we developed iTHRIVE 365, a mu...

Background Black cisgender gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men (SMM) and transgender women (TW) continue to be heavily affected by HIV. Further research is needed to better understand HIV prevention and care outcomes in this population. In particular, there is a need for research examining the impact of substance use and sleep health on HI...

Objectives: This uncontrolled pilot study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary HIV and psychological health effects of iTHRIVE 365, a multicomponent intervention designed by and for Black same gender loving men (SGLM) to promote: health knowledge and motivation, Black SGLM social support, affirming healthcare, and housing and o...

Objective: The threat of HIV has been proposed as a major contributing factor to the disproportionately higher rates of anxiety among gay and bisexual men compared to their heterosexual counterparts. The current study examined 12-month trajectories of anxiety symptoms and concomitant HIV-related worry among a cohort of preexposure prophylaxis (PrE...

Researchers are increasingly recognizing the importance of studying and addressing intersectional stigma within the field of HIV. Yet, researchers have, arguably, struggled to operationalize intersectional stigma. To ensure that future research and methodological innovation is guided by frameworks from which this area of inquiry has arisen, we prop...

This study examined associations between structural racism, anti-LGBTQ policies, and suicide risk among young sexual minority men (SMM). Participants were a 2017-2018 Internet-based U.S. national sample of 497 Black and 1536 White SMM (ages 16-25). Structural equation modeling tested associations from indicators of structural racism, anti-LGBTQ pol...

Communities marginalized because of racism, heterosexism, and other systems of oppression have a history of being aggressively policed, and in those contexts, researchers have observed associations between a range of negative experiences with police and poor physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. However, past studies have been limited i...

Introduction Although evidence indicates that Black gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men experience vast psychological and behavioral health inequities, most research has focused on individual rather than structural drivers of these inequities. This study examines the associations between structural racism and anti–lesbian, gay, bisexual, t...

Transgender individuals face severe stigma-driven health inequities structurally, institutionally, and interpersonally, yielding poor individual-level outcomes. Gender affirmation, or being recognized based on one’s gender identity, expression, and/or role, may be considered a manifestation of resilience. To provide intervention and policy guidelin...

Background Transgender individuals face severe stigma-driven health inequities structurally, institutionally and interpersonally, yielding poor individual-level outcomes. Gender affirmation, or being recognized based on one's gender identity, expression and/or role, may be considered a manifestation of resilience. Methods To provide intervention a...

Although there has been recent research investigating the effects of structural anti-LGBTQ stigma on psychological and HIV-related health outcomes among sexual minority men (SMM), limited evidence exists on how multiple types of stigma at the structural level intersect to negatively in uence these outcomes. Speci cally, it is unclear how the inters...

Although racial sexual exclusivity among Black gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men (SMM) is frequently framed as a cause of HIV inequities, little research has examined how these sexual relationships may be driven by and protective against racism. This study examined associations between general racial discrimination, Black sexual exclusiv...

Rationale Although Black gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men (SMM) face disproportionately high levels of incarceration and police discrimination, little research examines how these stressors may drive psychological and HIV inequities among these men. Objective In this study we examined associations between incarceration history, police a...

Objective: This study examined psychological and sexual health indicators associated with positive feelings and discrimination at the intersection of race and gender among Black gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men (SMM). Method: Participants were a national sample of 1,064 Black SMM (Mdn age = 28) who responded to self-report measures of p...

This study investigated trajectories of individual and vicarious online racial discrimination (ORD) and their associations with psychological outcomes for African American and Latinx adolescents in 6th–12th grade (N = 522; Mgrade = 9th) across three waves. Data were analyzed using growth mixture modeling to estimate trajectories for ORD and to dete...

This study examined frequencies and psychological effects of daily racial discrimination experienced individually , vicariously, online, offline, and through teasing. Participants were 101 Black U.S. American adolescents for this ecological momentary assessment study that measured daily racial discrimination and 14-day depressive symptoms slopes. C...

Purpose: Transgender women in the United States face elevated rates of HIV and of substance use. Studies measuring overall or aggregate levels of substance use have linked use to increased HIV transmission risk behavior (TRB). Although intensive longitudinal studies in other populations have found day-level links between substance use and TRB, no s...

Objective: Although Black, Latino, and multiracial gay and bisexual men (GBM) are disproportionately affected by psychological and behavioral health inequities facing GBM more broadly in the United States (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2017), there is a dearth of research examining how their experiences of intersectional stigma contribu...

Objectives: Although social science research has examined police and law enforcement-perpetrated discrimination against Black men using policing statistics and implicit bias studies, there is little quantitative evidence detailing this phenomenon from the perspective of Black men. Consequently, there is a dearth of research detailing how Black men’...

Parental racial socialization is a parenting tool used to prepare African American adolescents for managing racial stressors. While it is known that parents’ racial discrimination experiences affect the racial socialization messages they provide, little is known about the influence of factors that promote supportive and communal parenting, such as...

This study examined patterns of (a) observed racial socialization messages in dyadic discussions between 111 African American mothers and adolescents (Mage = 15.50) and (b) mothers' positive emotions displayed during the discussion. Mothers displayed more advocacy on behalf of their adolescents in response to discrimination by a White teacher than...

Although extensive research has documented that Black people in the United States frequently experience social discrimination, most of this research aggregates these experiences primarily or exclusively by race. Consequently, empirical gaps exist about the psychosocial costs and benefits of Black men’s experiences at the intersection of race and ge...

SRCD 2015 Conference Roundtable

Introduction: Prior studies indicate that racial discrimination contributes to the persistence of race-based disparities in income, education, incarceration, and an array of mental and physical health outcomes affecting African Americans. Recent research with African American children and adolescents suggests that racial discrimination becomes sali...

Compared to men, the decline in smoking over the past few decades has been slower for women and smoking-related morbidity and mortality has increased substantially. Identifying sex-specific risk factors will inform more targeted intervention/prevention efforts. The purpose of this research is to examine the interactive effect of psychological (trai...