Associations between trajectories of perceived racial discrimination and psychological symptoms among African American adolescents

Abstract

Many African American adolescents experience racial discrimination, with adverse consequences; however, stability and change in these experiences over time have not been examined. We examined longitudinal patterns of perceived racial discrimination assessed in grades 7 – 10 and how these discrimination trajectories related to patterns of change in depressive and anxious symptoms and aggressive behaviors assessed over the same 4-year period. Growth mixture modeling performed on a community epidemiologically-defined sample of urban African American adolescents (n = 504) revealed three trajectories of discrimination: (1) increasing, (2) decreasing, and (3) stable low. As predicted, African American boys were more frequent targets for racial discrimination as they aged, and were more likely to be in the increasing group. Results of parallel process growth mixture modeling revealed that youth in the increasing racial discrimination group were four times more likely to be in an increasing depression trajectory than youth in the low stable discrimination trajectory. Though youth in the increasing racial discrimination group were nearly twice as likely to be in the high aggression trajectory, results were not statistically significant. These results indicate an association between variation in the growth of perceived racial discrimination and youth behavior and psychological well-being over the adolescent years.

The Role of Perceived Discrimination during Childhood and Adolescence in Understanding Racial and Socioeconomic Influences on Depression in Young Adulthood

“…To date, the evidence for the presence and direction of racial/ethnic disparities in depressive symptoms during adolescence, particularly black-white differences, has been mixed, as has evidence for the relationships of SES markers to depression in adolescence and young adulthood. Higher levels of discrimination have been found among individuals with disadvantaged social status, 21 including racial and ethnic minorities, 21,25,26,29,30,39 and have also been shown to have an inverse relationship with mental health. 22 However, to our knowledge, no prior study has documented the high levels of discrimination among black young adults from highly educated families that we demonstrated here.…”

“…20,21,25–27 In turn, perceived racial discrimination correlates with low psychological well-being among racial and ethnic minority youth. 19,28–30 Whether perceived discrimination accounts for some or all of the influence of low SES on depression in adolescence is unknown, as is whether the influence of discrimination is the same across racial/ethnic groups. Although Brody et al showed that high SES non-Hispanic black 5 th graders had lower levels of perceived racial discrimination but reported greater increases in discrimination across early adolescence than their lower SES non-Hisapnic black peers, 19 to our knowledge, no study has explored if and how perceived discrimination in childhood and adolescence affects the relationships between SES, race, and depression during the transition into adulthood.…”

Supportive Family Environments Ameliorate the Link Between Racial Discrimination and Epigenetic Aging

“…A review of recent cross-sectional and longitudinal studies involving adolescents shows a considerable amount of heterogeneity in exposure to interpersonal discrimination (Brody, Lei, Chae, Yu, Kogan, & Beach, 2014; Richardson, Macon, Mustafaa, Bogan, Cole-Lewis, & Chavous, 2015; Smith, Reynolds, Fincham, & Beach, 2015; Smith-Bynum, Lambert, English, & Ialongo, 2014). These studies show that African American adolescents’ encounters with interpersonal discrimination are best characterized by qualitatively different subgroups, with many youth encountering low and increasing exposures to racial discrimination and others encountering more frequent experiences with racial discrimination.…”

System to Detect Racial-Based Bullying through Gamification

“…In this study, we concentrated on this type of bullying, because Spain is one of the main host countries for immigrants (Pajares, 2009). In this context, many immigrant students in Spain are bullied because of racial discrimination (Ávila, 2013) with disastrous consequences for their development, such as anxiety, or development of aggressive behavior (Smith et al, 2014). …”