Secular and Religious Social Support Better Protect Blacks than Whites against Depressive Symptoms.

In the pooled sample, secular and religious social support were both protective against depressive symptoms, net of all covariates. Race interacted with secular (&beta; = &minus;0.62 for interaction) and religious (&beta; = &minus;0.21 for interaction) social support on baseline depressive symptoms (p < 0.05 for both interactions), suggesting larger protections for Blacks compared to Whites. In race-specific models, the regression weight for the effect of secular social support on depressive symptoms was larger for Blacks (&beta; = &minus;0.64) than Whites (&beta; = &minus;0.16). Conclusion: We found Black&mdash;White differences in the protective effects of secular and religious social support against depressive symptoms. Blacks seem to benefit more from the same level of emotional social support, regardless of its source, compared to Whites.