Socio-cultural contexts surrounding African American grief management after homicide

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20213130

Despite the numerous studies examining the death rate and behaviors of African Americans, there seems to be a scarce amount of research regarding these individuals' grief and subsequent coping after the traumatic event of homicide. African American individuals identifying as survivors of homicide have been shown to be vastly more susceptible to mental health issues associated with a maladaptive grieving process such as depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) as compared to their Caucasian counterparts (Burke, Neimeyer, & McDevitt-Murphy, 2010). As violence has been shown to be more pervasive within these disadvantaged communities, it is imperative to understand how African Americans determine which coping strategies are most apt. Moreover, the dearth of scholarly research on the subject sheds light on the recent demand for a more culturally informed understanding of grief and coping. The current literature review examines this understudied phenomenon through the socio-cultural context surrounding African American grief that leads to the formation of their unique coping strategies. From this assessment, the author proposes a theoretical framework, which would allow a new way of observing how African Americans navigate their grief by weighing their ancestral heritage beliefs and their own contemporary beliefs with one another to determine the best coping strategies available to them. It is the hope of this literature review that the newly proposed framework will aid in the creation of a more culturally informed mental health care for African Americans.