GSS faculty members Rahbel Rahman, Sameena Azhar, Laura Wernick, Tina Maschi, and Jordan DeVylder have collaborated on a study that explored predictors to mask mandate support and racial justice protest participation across a diverse group of New York City residents.
The study, published in the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, is titled “Mask mandates, race, and protests of summer 2020.” Its findings “offer a model for social workers to understand how race, political participation and COVID-19 intersect to create racially just responses to health and justice matters.”
Read more on the study below:
This manuscript is part of a larger project titled ” Racialization of COVID-19 stigma”, which was a collaboration between Azhar, Rahman, Wernick, Maschi, and DeVylder. This manuscript examined predictors to mask mandate support and racial justice protest participation across Asian (n = 103), Black (n = 102), white (n = 102) New York City residents, using binary logistic regressions. Participants with positive feelings about the racial justice movement were more likely to participate in the protests. White and Asian respondents were more likely to support the mask mandates over Black respondents. Asian respondents were less likely to participate in public protests over white respondents. Our findings offer a model for social workers to understand how race, political participation and COVID-19 intersect to create racially just responses to health and justice matters. We thank our research assistants Margaret Cohen and Simone Hopwood (now alumnis) for all their work on the manuscript.
