Black adolescents may experience five daily instances of racial discrimination

Black adolescents in the United States reported more than five instances of racial discrimination daily, which led to short-term increases in depressive symptoms, according to study findings published in Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. Researchers observed that the internet was the most common context for discriminatory experiences among this population.

“This research reflects what researchers and activists have asserted for years: Black adolescents are forced to face antiblack microaggressions on a daily basis,” Devin English, PhD, assistant professor at Rutgers School of Public Health, said in a press release. “Importantly, this study expands the research on the many ways that discrimination happens, whether it is being teased by peers, asked to speak for their racial group in class or seeing a racist post on social media.”

According to English and colleagues, much prior research highlighted persistent racial discrimination targeted toward black adolescents, which contributed to increased psychological symptoms, substance use and physiological problems, as well as decreased academic achievement. Although evidence abounds, according to the researchers, past studies may have underestimated the association between negative biopsychosocial outcomes and racial discrimination among black adolescents, since they assessed a limited set of a larger group of theoretically relevant and qualitatively indicated contemporary experiences of racial discrimination.

In the present ecological momentary assessment study, English and colleagues surveyed 101 black U.S. American adolescents to measure daily racial discrimination and 14-day depressive symptoms slopes. They used confirmatory factor analyses to specify subscales, t-test analyses to compare subscale means and hierarchical linear analyses to test associations between depressive symptoms slopes and subscales. They found that six subscales aligned with the data — individual general, vicarious general, individual online, vicarious online, individual teasing and vicarious teasing. Participants reported an average of 5.21 experiences of racial discrimination daily across the six subscales for a total of 5,606 experiences during the study. Discriminatory experiences related to the two online subscales occurred more frequently than those from the offline subscales. All subscales were positively associated with depressive symptoms slopes, aside from online vicarious experiences, according to the researchers.

“Although public discourse can indirectly or directly blame health inequities on black youth, our study provides evidence that racial discrimination in society is a fundamental cause of these health inequities,” English said. “Knowing this, people in positions of power such as clinicians, school administrators and policy makers have a responsibility to consider discrimination as a critical aspect of the daily experience and health of black teens. Racial discrimination prevention should be a public health imperative.” – by Joe Gramigna

Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.