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Compelling evidence proved that coronavirus disease (COVID-19) disproportionately affects minorities. The goal of the present study was to explore the effects of intersected discrimination and discrimination types on COVID-19, mental health, and cognition. A sample of 542 Iraqis, 55.7% females, age ranged from 18 to 73, with (M = 31.16, SD = 9.77). 48.7% were Muslims, and 51.3% were Christians (N = 278). We used measures for COVID-19 stressors, executive functions, intersected discrimination (gender discrimination, social groups-based discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, and genocidal discrimination), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, status and death, existential anxieties, and health. We conducted independent samples t test between Muslims and Christians. We conducted hierarchical regression analyses using the Christian minority subsample to see if intersected discrimination is predictive of COVID-19 hospitalization. We conducted two-path analyses, one with intersected discrimination as an independent variable and the second with the different discrimination types as independent variables. Intersected discrimination predicted COVID-19 hospitalization. The primary discrimination type for Christians was genocidal discrimination. Christians had higher existential anxiety about status and death than Muslims. Intersected discrimination and discrimination types had a significant association with mental health, health, and cognition variables, with intersected discrimination, had a higher impact than each. Existential anxiety about the person's social and economic status was the critical outcome of intersected discrimination that trickles down to other variables. COVID-19 stressors had significant effects on depression, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and Status existential annihilation anxiety (EAA). COVID-19 hospitalization and stressors are associated with inhibition and working memory deficits. We discussed the conceptual and clinical implications of the results. Public Policy Relevance Statement: The current found empirical evidence that intersected discrimination is a significant predictor of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) hospitalization in Iraqi Christians and underlies the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on discrimination victims. Intersected discrimination triggered the existential anxiety about the person's social and economic status (status EAA) that trickled down to adverse health, mental health, and cognitive outcomes. The primary discrimination type for Iraqi Christians exposed to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was genocidal discrimination, one of the worst discrimination types. COVID-19 stressors had significant effects on higher status EAA and adverse effects on mental health and cognition. The present study results highlighted the primacy of addressing intersected discrimination and the advocacy for social justice and support for victims of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much clinical and trauma work has focused on interventions with individuals experiencing interpersonal violence and past traumas. Refugees' experiences include past and present and chronic intergroup and interpersonal traumas with cumulative linear and nonlinear dynamics. Refugees face unique social and political traumatogenic ecologies that can play at least an equivalent or even more significant role in traumatic stress compared with that of survivors of interpersonal trauma who do not experience atrocities such as exile, political and religious persecution, and torture. Evolving paradigms of intervention need to be developed to integrate individual and ecological models of recovery that focus on the whole person within her or his social and political ecology and on past as well as present traumatogenic experiences; in addition, these paradigms need to mobilize refugees' resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the effects of bullying victimization (BV), as a Type II traumatic stressor, on intelligence quotient (IQ), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and complex PTSD symptoms. Participants were 390 African American and Iraqi refugee adolescents. Measures of BV, cumulative life trauma, PTSD, discrimination, and IQ were administered. Correlational, multilevel regression, and path analyses were conducted. BV, independent of cumulative trauma, and discrimination were found to have significant direct effects on increased PTSD symptoms and significant direct and indirect negative effects on perceptual reasoning, processing speed, and working memory. BV was also associated with increases in the discrepancy between perceptual reasoning and verbal comprehension. The implications of these results for the prevention and treatment of bullying victims are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme stress resulting from various types of trauma is associated with changes in some brain structures that may affect IQ parameters. To assess relationships between multiple types of trauma and traumas, 390 African Americans and Iraqi refugee adolescents were studied. Nonlinear relationship between severe abuse, abandonment, parents divorce, age when adopted, witnessing domestic violence, and decreased verbal IQ, and between frequency of being in foster care, age when experienced death of close relative, and decreased perceptual IQ was found. Additionally, nonlinear relationships between extreme stresses resulting from such traumas and IQ discrepancy indexes were found. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on forgiveness on the interpersonal level has found evidence of its positive health and mental health effects. However, there is no research on the health and mental health benefits of forgiveness in political conflicts. The removal of the dictator and the war in Iraq has provided researchers with opportunities to answer some questions about the effects of forgiveness in political conflicts. This study used a modified measure of forgiveness and measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cumulative trauma disorder (complex PTSD), health, and religiosity with a sample of 501 Iraqi refugees in Wayne County, Michigan. Results indicated that forgiveness of the collaborators has some positive mental health benefits and is associated with religiosity, whereas not forgiving them has serious health and mental health consequences. However, counter to predictions, un-forgiveness of the dictator was found to be associated with positive health and mental health. Health mediated the effects of un-forgiveness on PTSD. The significance of these results to working with victims of political violence and reconciliation is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to examine whether the retributive justice enacted by the elimination of the oppressive regime in Iraq has positive mental health effects on Iraqi refugees. The study was conducted on a sample of 501 Iraqi refugees. Data was collected with measures for retributive justice, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cumulative trauma disorder (CTD), cumulative trauma, futuristic orientation, sociocultural adjustment, post-traumatic growth, social support, and other measures. Multiple regression and path analyses found that the variable regaining self-control and executive functions was the most predictive of the positive mental health gains. However, improvements in PTSD symptoms were not observed, possibly because of previous traumas or the ongoing trauma of discrimination and the war in Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]