Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jan 1;7(1):101-115.
doi: 10.1177/2332649220911387. Epub 2020 Mar 18.

"Yes We Can!" The Mental Health Significance for U.S. Black Adults of Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Election

Tony N Brown  1 , Alexa Solazzo  2 , Bridget K Gorman  1
Affiliations

"Yes We Can!" The Mental Health Significance for U.S. Black Adults of Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Election

Tony N Brown et al. Sociol Race Ethn (Thousand Oaks). .

Abstract

This study examines the mental health significance of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election for black adults. His election was a milestone moment. Hence, we expect black adults would experience improved mental health after the first self-identified black person wins election to the most powerful position in the United States. Using nationally representative survey data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we address this expectation by predicting poor mental health days that black adults report pre-election and post-election. We find no overall difference in poor mental health days between the time periods. However, a statistical interaction between gender and time period demonstrates black men report 1.01 fewer poor mental health days after the election, whereas black women report .45 more poor mental health days after the election.

Keywords: BRFSS; Barack Obama; gender; mental health; quasi-experiment; social determinants of health; symbolic empowerment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Time Periods Before and After Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Election on November 4, 2008
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Predicted Poor Mental Health Days among Black Adults by Time Periods Before and After Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Election and Gender Using Nationally Representative Survey Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Alim Samy H., and Smitherman Geneva. 2012. Articulate While Black: Barack Obama,Language, and Race in the U.S New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    1. Anderson Carol. 2016. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
    1. Avery Derek R., Hernandez Morela, and Hebl Michelle R.. 2004. “Who’s Watching the Race? Racial Salience in Recruitment Advertising.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 34(1):146–161.
    1. Bell Derrick. 1992. “Racial Realism.” Connecticut Law Review 24:363–379.
    1. Bobo Lawrence D., and Dawson Michael C.. 2009. “A Change Has Come: Race, Politics, and the Path to the Obama Presidency.” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 6(1):1–14.