The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the problem of family and intimate partner violence (IPV) across the globe. Shelter-in-place orders heighten risks for family members experiencing abuse while also further distancing victims from outside social support.

Additionally, little research has explored how familial instability related to COVID-19 is affecting the mental health and well-being of young adults (18-25). Yet with forced evacuations from college campuses, many young adults are returning to family homes that are contending with significant economic, social, and physical uncertainties while students themselves also experience separation from peer support and educational resources.

For Asian and Asian American (A/AA) young people, such stressors are complicated by the spike in anti-Asian racism that has followed the pandemic. According to the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center’s April report, of the nearly 1,500 incidents of verbal harassment, shunning, and physical assaults that were reported from early March to mid-April, 33% of victims were AAPI* individuals in their teens or twenties.

*Stop AAPI Hate uses the terminology “Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI)”

In this study, we  investigate how illness, racism, and economic instability related to COVID-19 affect A/AA young adults’ relationships with their families and peers, further compounding the risk of violence.

Our study uses in-depth interviews with A/AA young adults and parents, and representatives from community-based advocacy, health services, and student services providers to ask the following questions: (1) How do external stressors related to COVID-19, such as racism, illness, and economic uncertainty influence family dynamics and the relationships that A/AA young adults have with their families? (2) How do A/AA young adults negotiate social support within their families, with their peers, and within their communities, and within the healthcare system? 

We also aim to examine how LGBTQ A/AA are particularly vulnerable within the context of family instability and to use our findings to provide guidance to campus LGBTQ centers on how to support A/AA and other students from immigrant families.