Background:

African American (AA) families are disproportionately burdened by COVID-19 resulting in morbidity and death. How pandemic risks and impacts are communicated to parents and in turn translated to children can have implications for familial mental wellbeing. Because culture shapes how information is received, processed, and utilized, there is need to understand how AA parents’ experiences of COVID-19 information sharing and perceived vulnerabilities influenced communication with their children.

Methods:

Data was collected through semistructured in-depth telephone interviews conducted among 11 African American households with school aged child (5 to 17 years). Line-byline coding and thematic analysis were used to deduce meaning from professionally transcribed data. Preliminary Findings: Four themes on trust in information sources, risk perceptions, attitudes to prevention methods, and parent-child risk communication emerged. Although participants felt challenged by their inherent vulnerabilities and communicating COVID-19 risks at an appropriate comprehension level to their children, they leaned into cultural safety nets such as “the dinner table” to encourage conversation and foster resilience.

Implications:

Understanding how African American families with children were impacted by COVID-19 and how adequate crisis communication can help mitigate adverse health consequences, strengthen recovery, foster resilience, and promote family and community healing is important. Clinicians and therapists who work with AA families should be sensitive to their social vulnerability and culturally responsive to AA family systems when communicating about public health emergencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).