The COVID-19 pandemic and the co-occurring period of racial trauma upended family environments and exacted a toll on parents (mothers in particular), racial and ethnic minorities, and sexual minorities. Understanding how parents functioned during this time was crucial to identifying mechanisms linking race, gender, and sexual identity marginalization to disparities in parental well-being, with critical implications for child health.

Leveraging novel population-based survey and time diary data collected the previous year from the National Couples’ Health and Time Study (NCHAT), the researchers identified mechanisms underlying gender, racial and ethnic minority, and sexual minority disparities in parenting stress and parental well-being during COVID and this period of intense racial trauma. NCHAT (N = 3,642) was a population-representative study of individuals between 20 and 60 living in same and different-gender couples in the U.S., with oversamples of Black, Latinx, and Asian families and sexual minorities. The study included 41% of partners as well. The analytic sample for this study focused on the 35% of the sample that had children under 18 (n = 1,274 main respondents; n = 567 partners).

This study aligned with the U01’s intention to fund “research to understand the health impacts of coronavirus mitigation strategies and the mechanisms that may convey risk and resilience, particularly in underserved and vulnerable populations, [that] would help improve long-term responses to the pandemic and prepare more effectively for the next public health emergency.” Importantly, understanding family experiences and strategies at this historical moment could inform interventions to address health detriments and build resiliency for the future of families.