LAUSR

In 2020, the United States had a glaringly bright light cast on two systemic issues that have disproportionately impacted the Black population: COVID-19 and racism (Milam et al., 2020; Taylor, 2021; Yancy, 2020). News reports, newspaper articles, and statements from the larger field (see the American Psychological Association’s statement addressing their history of racism: https://www. apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology; American Psychological Association, 2021) all focus on “calling out” the longstanding systemic injustices that have been prevalent in American society targeted at Black people. In the genesis of this special issue, editors of the Clinical Gerontologist discovered that the larger issues being called out in America surrounding the exclusion and mistreatment of Black people were also occurring in our field. Specifically, in a brief metanalysis of papers published in the Clinical Gerontologist over time, it was found that only 2% of the papers highlighted factors affecting older Black populations. It has become apparent that even our field is not excluded from the racial reckoning surrounding the treatment of the Black population. For this special issue, authors were invited to submit manuscripts targeting behavioral health outcomes and protective factors in older Black populations. In addressing these factors, this special issue investigates both older Black adults and the spaces where they are cared for. To start this issue, authors explore differential influences on older Black behavioral health, highlighting the notion that “Black” is not monolithic. In a descriptive study of a grossly understudied group, Nkimbeng et al. (2021) found that among 148 older African immigrants living in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, 8.1% displayed symptoms clinically significant for depression. The most predominant display of depression in this sample was sleep difficulties, which is an association that has been previously supported within older Black populations (Bazargan, 1996). A secondary data analysis investigating the amalgamation of stress, depressive symptoms, physical problems, and psychological resilience among Black and Latinx older adults found that while Black and Latinx older adults experience more depressive symptoms than their non-Hispanic White (NHW) counterparts, experiencing a higher incidence of stressful life events did not show as great of an increase of their depressive symptoms as it did within older NHW populations (Arpawong et al., 2022). Moreover, older Black adults were found to have poorer physical health than NHWs, but in terms of psychological resilience (i.e., a person’s ability to retain or regain well-being following a stressful life event; Aldwin & Igarashi, 2012; Rutter, 2006), higher rates of stressful life events affected older Black adults’ psychological resilience less than NHWs. The final article speaking to older Black adult behavioral health tackles a topic of critical importance within older adult populations: falls. One of the most common causes of both fatal and nonfatal hospitalizations among older adults is falls (Burns et al., 2016). With fear of falling being a risk factor for future falls, Washington et al. (2020) found that Black older adults and older adults with lower mobility and a higher risk of falls based on prior fall history were more likely to