Riana Elyse Anderson, Ph.D., receives 2020 Racial Injustice Award of $35,000 from the Depression Center for her research on reducing racism-related depression

The relationship between discrimination and Black youth’s long-term health outcomes — especially mental wellbeing and depression — has been established, with depressive symptoms often increasing three-fold after events like fatal police encounters. Dr. Anderson’s project, EMBRacing Technology to Improve Black Youth’s Coping with Racial Discrimination to Reduce Depressive Symptoms, will measure adolescent coping responses through the use of a virtual reality narrative program she is developing. Passage Home: Police will provide participants with a virtual discriminatory experience with a police officer to elicit responses. She will gather data on how Black adolescents respond to such discriminatory experiences so that she can develop coping practices to reduce depressive symptoms following such encounters. Dr. Anderson and members of her lab will work simultaneously with these young people on both the assessment of responses as well as the coping techniques and mechanisms though the course of the project.

Riana Elyse Anderson, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Public Health’s Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. She also directs the EMBRace (Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race) intervention at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD in clinical and community psychology from the University of Virginia and completed a postdoctoral internship at Yale University's School of Medicine as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. She uses mixed methods in clinical interventions to study racial discrimination and socialization in Black families. The aim of her work is to reduce racial stress and trauma to improve psychological wellbeing and family functioning.

In response to recent tragic events involving systemic racism and violence against Black Americans, the Depression Center created a new and targeted funding opportunity for researchers exploring issues of racism and its effects on mental health. To that end, with monies from the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg Translational Research Fund were directed to fund this Racial Injustice Award. Dr. Anderson has also received a $50,000 Rachel Upjohn Clinical Scholar Award supporting this research.

Visit Dr. Anderson's website to learn more about her and her research.