African Descent Populations in the United States Are Not Monolithic: A Scoping Review of African Immigrants' Mental Health and Coping Strategies

Objective: African immigrants in the United States have unique experiences and stressors, resulting in diverse outcomes and disparities. As such, examining the effects of cultural stressors (e.g., discrimination, the negative context of reception, bicultural stress) on immigrant populations' mental health can provide a useful framework for explaining and identifying malleable targets to reduce African immigrants' health disparities. This review mapped conceptual and methodological knowledge of cultural stress in African immigrants by applying the cultural stress theoretical framework to reveal (a) what we currently know about the impact of cultural stressors on African immigrants' mental health and (b) coping strategies African immigrants utilize to persist in achieving positive health outcomes. Method: Conforming to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for Scoping Review guidelines, this scoping review spans five interdisciplinary, health-focused databases and includes peer-reviewed articles published in English since 1980. Results: Covidence software was used to screen 2095 articles, review 129 full-text records, and extract data from the 22 studies that met criteria and focused on mental health. Participant and study characteristics (i.e., country of origin, generation, methodology, duration) are highlighted. The impact of discrimination on African immigrants' mental health was the dominant research focus. Congruent with cultural stress theory, negative context, bicultural stress, and immigration-related familial stress also negatively impact their mental health. Nevertheless, African immigrants utilize various coping strategies to achieve positive outcomes. Conclusions: Mapping the existing evidence of immigrant cultural stress and mental health elucidates gaps for research and demonstrates that culturally relevant interventions ought to address immigration-related stressors. African immigrants-who experience a combination of cultural stress and race-related stress-when studied are often collapsed with U.S.-born African Americans, limiting full understanding of the intersectionality of race and immigration-related stressors on African immigrants' mental health. This scoping review explicitly sheds light on what is known about African immigrants' cultural stress, mental health, and coping so as to inform equitable health and public policies that can better support this population's unique needs.