Toward a Unified Theory of Depression Among Urban African American Youth: Integrating Socioecologic, Cognitive, Family Stress, and Biopsychosocial Perspectives

With the recent increase in empirical studies investigating depression among urban African American youth comes the need to refine and integrate theoretical perspectives that address culture-specific etiologic mechanisms and developmental trajectories. The purpose of this article is to review four theories of depression relevant to the study of African American adolescents and to offer suggestions for the integration of theories to enhance the culturally relevant design of empirical investigations. It is argued that all four theories—socioecologic, cognitive, family stress, and biopsychosocial—center on the role of oppression in the development of urban Black youth and that an integrated theory would assume this underlying construct as its core focus. A macrotheoretical model synthesizing the four theories is presented, with oppression identified as the key catalyst in the chain of factors that might ultimately lead to adolescent depression. Implications for further theory development and empirical research on adolescent depression are discussed.