“about Surviving, That's My Biggest Worry”: Content, Prevalence, and Changes in Self-Described Future Fears of African American and Latino Young Men

Background: Research indicates that survival-based fears in adolescence are especially potent predictors of later life impairment and blunted educational/vocational trajectories. Adolescents living in low-income urban centers, especially young men of color, report expectations of early death at disproportionately high rates compared to youth who are White and of higher socioeconomic status. However, relatively little is known about how the types of fears discussed by young men change, both in content and prevalence, across adolescence. This papers helps to fill this gap by examining the future fears described by minority young men over an eight year period (ages 13 through 20).

Methods: Data are drawn from six waves of the Chicago Youth Development Study, a longitudinal prospective cohort study of psychosocial health and development among inner-city African American and Latino young men. At the onset of the study, sixty two percent of study participants lived in single-parent homes, nearly half (47.6%) of the families had a total income below $10,000 per year, and nearly three-quarters (73.5%) had incomes below $20,000. Participants were initially recruited from middle school classrooms from seventeen Chicago public schools. Participants were assessed every year for the first four years, and generally every two years after that. At each interview wave, participants were asked to “Imagine themselves five years in the future” followed by, “What is your biggest worry about the time between now and then?” Responses to this open-ended question were analyzed thematically within each wave using an inductive approach (Wave 1 N=258; Wave 2 N=230; Wave 3 N=236, Wave 4 N=242, Wave 5 N=215, Wave 6 N=207).

Results: Three primary themes were identified across six waves of interviews. Each of the primary themes subsisted of categories ranging from two to five categories per theme. The three themes included: 1) Survival, safety, and security (categories: death, gangs/drugs, getting hurt, jail/incarceration, and financial stability); 2) “Making it” (categories: school/education, job/occupation, success/failure); and 3) Family wellness and fatherhood (categories: family safety & wellbeing, fatherhood). Youth discuss precariously high rates of fears related to safety and survival between the ages of thirteen and twenty years. Survival-based fears, including death, represent the greatest proportion of overall fears described over the eight year period. School-related fears decline significantly while those related to fatherhood, incarceration, and financial stability increase over this period, highlighting these concerns during the transition into young adulthood.

Implications: In this sample of urban young men of color, survival-related fears are significant and enduring, with implications for health and well-being across adolescence into adulthood. Imagining a positive future is a key developmental asset for all youth. Yet, in order to develop a positive set of beliefs and expectations related to the future, youth must first and foremost believe in their ability to survive; to be alive, well, and thriving. Prevention and intervention efforts to bolster positive future expectations with marginalized youth will be strengthened by understanding the contextualized fears of this population.