While the socioeconomic status (SES)–psychological distress gradient is well-documented in the social science literature, less attention has been devoted to how this relationship varies within sociodemographic subgroups. I contribute to this small but growing literature by first examining the relationship between multiple dimensions of SES and two measures of psychological distress (depression and anxiety) among working-age African Americans. I then test whether three social mediators explain the SES–psychological distress relationship, and whether gender modifies these associations and/or the social mediators that shape them. To address these aims, I analyze two waves of population-representative data from the Detroit Neighborhood Health Study (N=685). Data were collected between 2008 and 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession. I utilize structural equation modeling with latent variables to assess these relationships, and test indirect and conditional effects to detect the presence of mediation and/or moderation, respectively. Findings revealed associations between higher total household income and lower levels of depression/anxiety, as well as unemployment and increased depression/anxiety among working-age African Americans. Furthermore, higher educational attainment was associated with reduced anxiety, but not depression, in this population. Gender moderated these findings such that unemployment was associated with higher levels of depression/anxiety among women but not men. I also found that trauma mediated the relationship between unemployment and depression/anxiety as well as educational attainment and anxiety. Gender, however, moderated the association between unemployment and depression/anxiety via traumatic events such that the relationship was stronger among women than men. Collectively, these findings contribute to our limited understanding of African Americans’ mental health and underscore the importance of how both socioeconomic forces and life course experiences with traumatic events contribute to poor mental health among this population.

虽然社会经济地位 (SES) - 心理困扰梯度在社会科学文献中有详细记载，但很少有人关注这种关系在社会人口亚群中如何变化。我首先检查了 SES 的多个维度与工作年龄的非裔美国人的心理困扰（抑郁和焦虑）的两个衡量标准之间的关系，从而为这一小规模但不断增长的文献做出了贡献。然后，我测试了三个社交中介是否可以解释 SES 与心理困扰的关系，以及性别是否会改变这些关联和/或塑造它们的社交中介。为了实现这些目标，我分析了来自底特律社区健康研究 (N=685) 的两波具有人口代表性的数据。数据是在 2008 年至 2010 年大衰退之后收集的。我利用带有潜在变量的结构方程模型来评估这些关系，并分别测试间接和条件效应以检测中介和/或调节的存在。调查结果显示，较高的家庭总收入与较低的抑郁/焦虑水平以及失业和工作年龄的非裔美国人的抑郁/焦虑增加之间存在关联。此外，在该人群中，较高的教育程度与焦虑减少有关，但与抑郁无关。性别对这些发现起到了调节作用，因此失业与女性而非男性的抑郁/焦虑程度更高有关。我还发现，创伤介导了失业与抑郁/焦虑以及教育程度和焦虑之间的关系。然而，性别 通过创伤性事件缓和失业与抑郁/焦虑之间的关联，从而使女性之间的关系比男性更强。总的来说，这些发现有助于我们对非裔美国人的心理健康的了解有限，并强调了社会经济力量和创伤事件的生命历程如何导致该人群心理健康不佳的重要性。