Abstract
BackgroundRacism and racial discrimination are increasingly acknowledged as a critical determinant of health and health inequalities. However, patterns and impacts of racial discrimination among children and adolescents remain under-investigated, including how different experiences of racial discrimination co-occur and influence health and development over time. This study examines associations between self-reported direct and vicarious racial discrimination experiences and loneliness and depressive symptoms over time among Australian school students.MethodsAcross seven schools, 142 students (54.2% female), age at T1 from 8 to 15 years old (M = 11.14, SD = 2.2), and from diverse racial/ethnic and migration backgrounds (37.3% born in English-speaking countries as were one or both parents) self-reported racial discrimination experiences (direct and vicarious) and mental health (depressive symptoms and loneliness) at baseline and 9 months later at follow up. A full cross-lagged panel design was modelled using MPLUS v.7 with all variables included at both time points.ResultsA cross-lagged effect of perceived direct racial discrimination on later depressive symptoms and on later loneliness was found. As expected, the effect of direct discrimination on both health outcomes was unidirectional as mental health did not reciprocally influence reported racism. There was no evidence that vicarious racial discrimination influenced either depressive symptoms or loneliness beyond the effect of direct racial discrimination.ConclusionsFindings suggest direct racial discrimination has a persistent effect on depressive symptoms and loneliness among school students over time. Future work to explore associations between direct and vicarious discrimination is required.
Highlights
Racism and racial discrimination are increasingly acknowledged as a critical determinant of health and health inequalities
We have reported direct experiences of racial discrimination as robustly associated with higher loneliness and depressive symptoms among Australian students cross-sectionally, and that the association with depressive systems was attenuated to marginal significance for students with low motivated fairness, that is low levels of motivation to respond without prejudice [42, 46]
At both time points, direct racism was positively associated with vicarious racism, loneliness and depressive symptoms
Summary
Racism and racial discrimination are increasingly acknowledged as a critical determinant of health and health inequalities. Vicarious (or indirect) forms of racial discrimination, that is hearing about or seeing another person’s experience of racism ([34]; Harrell 25) as well as carers or close family members experiencing discrimination that may or may not be witnessed by children and adolescents [44] are starting to be documented in relation to negative child and adolescent outcomes. This is consistent with considerable evidence demonstrating harmful effects for children and youth of vicarious, indirect experiences of violence such as hearing reports of violence against people they know or witnessing violence [63]. The co-occurrence and impacts of direct and vicarious racial discrimination experiences reported by children and adolescents over time have, so far, not been investigated empirically [42, 46]
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