Racism and Racial Injustice During COVID-19: Impact on University Student Mental Health

The purpose of the study is to understand how undergraduate, graduate, and professional students were affected by the events of racial injustice and the COVID-19 pandemic. Data gathered from an online campus-wide survey administered during July and August 2020 indicated high levels of stress and rates of depression across all stages of training. A majority of these students also indicated that, while events around racism negatively impacted their mental health, such events did not affect students’ academic success as COVID-19 did. Although previous studies have demonstrated that student mental health has been negatively affected during COVID-19, this study shows that student mental health is also impacted by events driven by racism and racial injustice concurrent to the pandemic. In light of these findings, it is recommended that institutions adopt an intersectional approach toward addressing such contemporaneous stressors with initiatives that can adapt to multiple events simultaneously. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This work was supported by internal funds from the School of Public Health Back of the Envelope Award, Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health, and the Office of Service Learning and Undergraduate Research, all at the University of Alabama at Birmingham ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Ethics committee/IRB of the University of Alabama at Birminghamgave ethical approval for this work I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors