In this Papers Podcast, Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh discusses her co-authored CAMH journal paper ‘Intergenerational consequences of racism in the United Kingdom: a qualitative investigation into parents’ exposure to racism and offspring mental health and well-being’ (https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12695).
Yasmin was the principal investigator on the TRADE project, which stands for ‘Transmission of experiences of Racism, Anxiety and Depression in families’.
There is an overview of the paper, methodology, key findings, and implications for practice.
Discussion points include:
- Definition of racism, what is currently known about the experiences of racism and how the experiences are linked to negative mental and physical health outcomes amongst those exposed.
- Why this area has been largely neglected in the research community within the UK, with most studies coming from the US.
- The bidirectional nature of parent and child experiences of racism with indirect effects impacting mental health and wellbeing in both generations.
- The difficulties in families where parent and child approaches differ in relation to active coping strategies and denial of racism.
- How one might reduce harms when talking about racism with children and young people.
- Protective factors and the importance of social cohesion, safe spaces and education.
- Recommendations for CAMH professionals.
In this series, we speak to authors of papers published in one of ACAMH’s three journals. These are The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (JCPP); The Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) journal; and JCPP Advances.
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Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh is a postdoctoral mental health researcher at King’s College London, where she was Principal Investigator on the TRADE project – looking at the “Transmission of experiences of Racism, Anxiety, and Depression in families”. Yasmin also currently works part-time at The McPin Foundation as a Young People’s Senior Peer Research Coordinator. Yasmin completed her PhD in Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry at King’s College London, and her BSc in Neuroscience with Professional Experience at the University of Manchester.
Other resources
- Podcast ‘Transmission of Experiences of Racism, Anxiety, and Depression in Families’, with Hannah Abdalla, Malaika Okundi, and Carl Simela
Transcript
[00:00:10.000] Jo Carlowe: Hello, welcome to the Papers Podcast series for the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, or ACAMH for short. I’m Jo Carlowe, a Freelance Journalist with a specialism in psychology. In this series, we speak to authors of the papers published in one of ACAMH’s three journals. These are the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, commonly known as JCPP, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health, known as CAMH, and JCPP Advances.
Today, I’m interviewing Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. Yasmin was the Principal Investigator on the TRADE Project, which stands for Transmission of experiences of Racism, Anxiety and Depression in families. She is an author of the paper, “Intergenerational Consequences of Racism in the United Kingdom: A Qualitative Investigation into Parents’ Exposure to Racism and Offspring Mental Health and Well-being, recently published in CAMH. This paper will be the focus of today’s podcast. If you’re a fan of our Papers Podcast series, please subscribe on your preferred streaming platform, let us know how we did, with a rating or review, and do share with friends and colleagues.
Yasmin, welcome, thanks for joining me. Can you start with an introduction about who you are and what you do?
[00:01:23.548] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: Yeah, sure. Thanks for inviting me. I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at King’s College London, and I analyse data from families to explore how mental health and wellbeing runs in families. So, how children become similar to their parents, and the roles of genes and environments in this. I also have another part-time role at a charity called the McPin Foundation, where I’m supporting teenage peer researchers to explore what support means young people want to help them in the context of serious youth violence. So, I’ve got two hats on at the moment, but we’ll just talk about one, I guess.
[00:02:00.854] Jo Carlowe: Okay, thank you very much. So, today, we’re going to focus on your CAMH paper, “Intergenerational Consequences of Racism in the United Kingdom: A Qualitative Investigation into Parents’ Exposure to Racism and Offspring Mental Health and Well-being.” Before we get into the detail, can you set the scene for us? What is currently known about the experiences of racism and how they are linked to negative physical and mental health outcomes amongst those exposed?
[00:02:29.585] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: I think when talking about racism, it’s always important to try and define what we mean at the beginning. So, in the context of this paper, at least, we’re talking about all layers of racism, so all the ways it can operate, from systemic issues to institutional racism, to interpersonal and internalised racism. And thinking about all the different ways it can operate, not just, kind of, racial slurs between people, which is, I think, what often comes to mind first.
And we know that people who are affected by racism, on average, will have higher risks of certain physical and mental health conditions and there are, again, loads of ways that this can operate. So, whether it’s through the, kind of, emotional stress and trauma of being discriminated against and/or being through reduced barriers to accessing public services, like healthcare and education. So, we know that when you experience racism, you’re at higher risk of having these, kind of, negative health outcomes, but most research really just looks at the direct impact on the individual, and in this paper, we wanted to see how experiences that parents might have could then impact, somehow, their offspring, as well.
[00:03:42.521] Jo Carlowe: And to date, most research on the intergenerational consequences of racism, in all the forms you’ve described, has come from the United States. Why, in your view, has this area been largely neglected by the research community in the UK?
[00:03:58.858] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: It’s a good question that lots of scholars will have really big answers to, but I think, in general, in America, conversations about race and racism are far more advanced than they are in the UK. I don’t think we’re all brought up in our education system thinking and talking about race and racism, and also, in the UK, the people who conduct research in the UK are majority White. So, there’s been this, kind of, imbalance in who’s asking the questions and, kind of, setting the research agenda and what’s getting funded, and I think people come up with research questions that feel like they matter to them and that they resonate with. And if you had more diverse groups of people setting those research questions, or being involved in research, then we might have got here sooner in terms of asking questions about the impacts of racism on mental health.
And I think there was a shift in, kind of, trying to prioritise this after the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, but I worry that momentum needs to be upheld to really, kind of, shift mental health research towards new priorities, like looking at the effects of racism on mental health.
[00:05:08.235] Jo Carlowe: Thank you. Let’s turn to the paper itself now. So, Yasmin, can you give us a summary? What did you look at and why?
[00:05:15.777] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: As I mentioned, I research mental health in families and there’s been loads of research on the links between parent and child mental health and the impact of parenting, but most of the research we use in the UK has been conducted with populations that’d mostly be identified as White European. And so, in this paper, we wanted to look at how things might differ for families who are affected by racism. Does that change the parent-child interactions and the, kind of, causes of mental health concerns in families?
In this project, we wanted to look at what research has been conducted on this question before and then, ask British parents and teenagers what they think of this question and whether it, kind of, feels meaningful and relevant to them and what their knowledge and perspectives are. And then, we wanted to, kind of, share and learn what we heard and collect feedback to try and influence new research and expand, kind of, who our work is for.
[00:06:12.988] Jo Carlowe: Can you say a little bit more about the methodology used? You’ve touched upon it, but…
[00:06:17.393] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: But after our literature review phase of con – seeing what was already out there, we advertised online. We are working with the charity Centre for Mental Health, who have lots of community links across the country. So, we advertised through them for any parents of school-aged children and teenagers who were aged 16 to 18, if they had been affected by racism, they could sign up to join our focus groups. We conducted four focus groups online and they were largely facilitated by members of my team who have experiences of being racially minoritised in the UK.
And we tried to create safe spaces for, kind of, group discussion and sharing ideas and we asked the parents and the teenagers who took part, “What types of racism do parents experience, and are the children aware of these? Do parents tell their children about racism? Is there an impact of this on parent-child relationships and interactions and emotional wellbeing, and how does this change as children grow up?” So, just trying to collect people’s knowledge and perspectives with these questions.
And we analysed that data using a form of thematic analysis called iterative categorisation, and then, we hosted some public events in-person and online, with Artists and Poets and Storytellers and Illustrators, to try and share, wider than just the paper we’re just talking about, but try and have more dialogue about what we’d heard.
[00:07:44.290] Jo Carlowe: Hmmm, and what key findings from the paper would you like to highlight?
[00:07:47.742] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: So, through our analysis, we, kind of, derived four key themes for telling the story of what we’d heard. So, we heard how some families in the UK are experiencing racism, and like I said at the beginning, this was on all the different layers in which racism can exist. So, from people talking about bias in public services, like education settings, all the way through to thinking about, kind of, colourism in communities and different forms of internalised racism. Yeah, we collected a lot of rich information about what racism really looks like for some families in the UK, and then, we heard about how this does have an impact on parenting, parent-child relationships.
So, we heard how some parents were trying to warn and protect their children from racism and prepare them for what they felt was definitely going to come, and also, how to cope emotionally. And we heard how parents were, kind of, navigating the challenge of balancing, like, too much versus not enough information for their children and how to explain and when to intervene in the context of racism with their children. And in terms of mental health, we, kind of, heard about all different types of effects that this can have, from, kind of, worry and fear, to thinking about children’s self-confidence and sense of identity, anger and frustration, but also, kind of, strength and resilience in overcoming these challenges within families.
And then, finally, we, kind of, collected all the ways in which participants told us how things might differ for different people. So, like, wider considerations and moderating factors, so, like, different forms of intersecting identities that you might have, or whether you’re first, second or third generation immigrant to the UK. What, kind of, other disabilities you might have. All these things that can change the story in your family and how we have to be paying attention to these nuances, as well, and the things that can help protect families and make them more resilient. We, kind of, found this narrative out of the data that we’d collected.
[00:09:53.348] Jo Carlowe: Really comprehensive. I want to dig into some of the specific findings. So, in your paper, you describe how “Parent and child experiences of racism were connected and co-occurring, with directing effects impacting mental health and well-being in both generations.” So, can you tell us more about the bidirectional nature of this?
[00:10:16.977] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: I think it’s – well, maybe I’m biased, but I think it’s also interesting to think about this in terms of the process of research. ‘Cause we set out with a really specific question of looking at how parents’ experiences of racism might impact their children. Had we not spoken to anyone, we maybe would’ve continued with that, with blinkers on, of just thinking about that one direction. And we went into the focus groups asking people, “What types of racism do parents experience and how does this impact the family?” And it just wasn’t possible for people to talk just about the racism that adults in families experience, because it’s so interconnected with the racism that children experience, as well.
And actually, for parents, the biggest concern for them was the racism that their children experience, and when they – we, kind of, talked about the ways in which racism was affecting their mental health, it was usually the racism that their children were experiencing, mostly at school. So, there was a lot of conversation about what happens in schools to children who are racialised in the UK. We did also hear about what we set out to ask about, which was the ways in which children react to the racism that their parents experience, but was just hand-in-hand with this much more complex picture that we wouldn’t have documented had we not actually spoken to people.
[00:11:35.268] Jo Carlowe: Yeah, so really hard to untangle, really. Your findings suggest difficulties in families where parent and child approaches differ in relation to active coping strategies and denial of racism. Can you elaborate on that finding?
[00:11:50.217] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: As you can imagine, there were lots of differences across people that we spoke to from different families and in some families, people described having really close parent-child relationships as a result of, kind of, being on the same side and understanding that racism is something that they could tackle together and that they understood each other’s experiences. But in some families, we, kind of, heard about this disconnect between parents and children in a family. So, in particular, the teenagers we spoke to feeling really frustrated with their parents’ approach to racism and feeling like their parents were resigned to it, not fighting it and just saying, “This is the way it is, and we have to manage it,” and teenagers really wanting their parents to fight for more change. Maybe – not necessarily being resigned to it, but maybe, also, parents not speaking about it with them at all. So, teenagers saying, “I’ve had to figure this all out for myself.”
And we heard that a lot from parents, too, that they had had to figure it out for themselves and now, they wanted to do things differently for their children. I think there’s a lot to be said in the, kind of, selection bias of who signed up to this project, because it’s people who had something to say about this topic. So, I guess the parents that we spoke to were quite engaged with this topic, and so were the teenagers, but perhaps they had family members who were less engaged, and that can feel difficult. Also, if your family members have a different identity to you. For, example, if you’re a teenager who is racialised by the way you look, but you have a White parent who might not understand your experiences, that was talked about in focus groups.
[00:13:21.177] Jo Carlowe: In your paper, it states, “Uncertainties were evident around when it is helpful versus harmful to talk about racism with children.” I think this is a subject for “future research,” I think you’ve explained in the paper. But is there anything you can say now about how one might reduce harms when talking about racism with children and young people?
[00:13:42.967] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: I think this is a really important topic for future research and it’s something that loads of parents were grappling with, and also, teenagers were grappling with because they knew what experiences they had, and they had opinions on when they have been good or bad, the way in which their parents had introduced them to the topic. And I don’t think I can give evidence-based pointers here on advice that can help, ‘cause it was a question mark that we all felt stuck with, and it’s going to depend on your family circumstance and your other identities, as well, of how you, kind of, navigate this and when, with children.
But we heard that these conversations about racism and preparing for racism and how – knowing how – teaching your children how to navigate that, they were starting really young in families, so, like, before children were eight-years-old. And it was mostly as a result of someone in the family having experienced or witnessed racism. And parents were often very frustrated and angry that they’d had to have these conversations with such young children, but felt like they did need to because of the events that they’d been exposed to.
And I think in terms of advice, one big thing that came up was thinking about how this education for young people is needed across the board. It’s not just for those at risk of experiencing racism. So, some families have to speak to their children about racism because they are going to be negatively affected by it. But other families, who aren’t really affected by it, they should also be talking to their children about it so that we can help educate whole generations of young people to know how to stop this cycle of prejudice and discrimination, so that all children can grow up aware and knowing how to navigate these issues. So, yeah, thinking about how all families have these conversations is going to be important, not just for those affected by it.
[00:15:29.299] Jo Carlowe: Just, kind of, sticking with this theme around education. In the paper, you highlight the importance of “social cohesion, safe spaces,” as well as “education, as factors that can reduce racism and its negative effects on families.” Can you say a little bit more about protective factors and how they might be enhanced?
[00:15:49.497] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: Yeah, it was interesting because we had people take part from all different racial and ethnic identities that are minoritised in the UK, and it was interesting to see how people from different backgrounds, who are affected by racism, shared such similar experiences. And the participants often were quite shocked that people from a completely different heritage had experienced the same thing as them. And lots of teenagers were saying, “I’ve been told to just be friends with people from the same racial or ethnic background as me, but – and you are someone who I would’ve been warned against being friends with, but you’re experiencing the same thing as me. And I had no idea that issues around colourism and, for example, were, like, pervasive across groups.”
And I think this idea of social cohesion, which, kind of, came together in the focus group, so people having this safe space to speak, the social cohesion, kind of, came up as, like, it would be nice if communities could work together more on tackling these topics across society, as there seems to be a lot of mistrust between groups at the moment. So, we, kind of, put – our participants talked a lot about how they can see that being a really positive thing moving forwards. And some instances where it’s working, like, for example, in the Black Lives Matter protests and people coming together, a, kind of, want for that collective action.
Yeah, and then the safe spaces for education, also, was talked about in terms of educating everyone. So, having places where anyone can, kind of, ask questions about different cultures and experiences and identities, and I think there was just a general belief that there’s a lot of ignorance on this topic. And as I said before, there’s – it’s something that’s talked about a lot more in America, but I think it’s not as widely understood in the UK how pervasive racism is and how many people it impacts on a day-to-day basis. So, this collective action to increase awareness and understanding was something that people felt would help.
[00:17:52.576] Jo Carlowe: Are Teachers, in terms of education, sort of – do they feel confident to have those, kind of, dialogues and create those safe spaces and…?
[00:18:01.330] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: And this isn’t something we directly collected data on, but questions around the role of Teachers did come up a bit from particularly parents feeling more confident with Teachers who had, themselves, experienced racism or discrimination. And that they took it more seriously and were, kind of, more trusted to manage racism in the classroom compared to other Teachers who weren’t personally affected. And there was a lot of discussion and afterwards, with the Centre for Mental Health, who’d written a policy briefing based on this paper, about how, kind of, antiracism training should become mandatory for Teachers in schools so that we have a more systematic approach to addressing racism. Because a lot of the distressing events that parents were experiencing were related to fighting in schools, or schools to take seriously the racism that their children were experiencing.
[00:18:53.658] Jo Carlowe: Hmmm hmm. I want to look now at CAMH professionals and perhaps some of the same considerations arise, but what recommendations do you have from your findings, for CAMH professionals?
[00:19:03.884] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: I think, similarly to what I’ve been saying about increasing awareness, but understanding that racism can be pervasive and exhausting for many people in society and that it’s something that many families feel that they have to endure and it’s been going on for generations, and many families do hold trauma associated with these experiences. And I think for CAMH professionals, recognising that emotional impact and that it’s multigenerational, and that it also holds to accessing services and the services that are provided in terms of how effective they are for families. I think a big part of this is acknowledging the trauma that many young people and their parents will hold, and asking about it and looking holistically at what support families need in the context of the racism they might be experiencing.
[00:19:55.701] Jo Carlowe: That’s really helpful. What about Researchers, what’s your message to them, given your findings?
[00:20:02.853] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: But I think this paper highlights so many different threads of – for new research questions that can be explored. We, kind of, set out with this idea of a research focus that we, kind of, wanted to put to people in the community and they opened up a whole new range of threads that we could go down. So, I think thinking about who’s asking the research questions and what you want to focus on, it’s helpful to listen to other people and to see what’s happening in real life. And this paper, kind of, gives a window into that for generating new research questions.
And yeah, thinking about who your research helps and who it doesn’t help and where you can fill gaps and, kind of, who’s being underserved by certain research. So, mental health research that I’d been working on to do with families, hadn’t been thinking about families who experience racism and that is a really big problem. So, I think for Researchers, considering their blind spots is important, and also, working across sectors. So, we partnered with the Centre for Mental Health on this project, and they really helped us to access new ways of thinking and linking up with community groups. They actually have a lot more expertise than in my university department for thinking about the impacts of racism in society and on mental health. So, not just always privileging academic knowledge and partnerships above others.
[00:21:27.067] Jo Carlowe: And Yasmin, what about for you personally, are you planning any follow-up research, or is there anything else in the pipeline that you would like to share with us?
[00:21:35.218] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: Personally, I’m about to start a fellowship where I’ll be working with medical records in the UK. So, this is a new way to get at health inequalities as we start to improve our infrastructure of linking up administrative government data in the country. So, I’m going to be looking at who accesses mental health services during pregnancy. So, very – at the very start of child development, what support women are getting for their mental health and where there might be inequalities in there. And through my other work, working on the topic of serious youth violence and support for young people in London, that’s also so linked with experiences of racism and discrimination faced by families and how we support young people in these situations. So, that’s through the Peer Action Collective, where we’ll be, kind of, making recommendations for young people in London, but also, there are others across the country doing the same thing.
[00:22:31.930] Jo Carlowe: Thank you and finally, what is your take home message for our listeners?
[00:22:36.504] Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh: I think that we need more research and clinical attention to the nuanced ways that different forms of racism can affect people, both through indirect and direct exposure to racism. So – and also, how these effects will differ depending on who you are and what other identities you hold, and I think that the research in this area has been pretty crude. So, it hasn’t really taken a rich perspective as to what racism is and how we measure it, but also, the way in which the effects are conceptualised.
There’s so much that needs to be unpacked in this, and we just don’t have enough research on it or understanding among professional services. And I think to do this, we need to listen to people who have been affected by these topics, to understand all the different experiences and the things that need to change. And I think we shouldn’t just be focusing on racialised communities when we talk about racism, ‘cause it’s everyone’s responsibility. So, we all need to be reducing racism, as well, and that means also working with the people who, kind of, perpetuate systems of hierarchy and inequality between people, whether that’s intentionally or unintentionally. So, yeah, making this work for everyone, including everyone, I think is going to be really important.
[00:23:53.748] Jo Carlowe: Brilliant. Thank you ever so much. For more details on Dr. Yasmin Ahmadzadeh, please visit the ACAMH website, www.acamh.org, and Twitter @ACAMH. ACAMH is spelt A-C-A-M-H, and don’t forget to follow us on your preferred streaming platform, let us know if you enjoy the podcast, with a rating or review, and do share with friends and colleagues.
