High Fear of Discriminatory Violence among Racial, Gender, and Sexual Minority College Students and Its Association with Anxiety and Depression.

Erin Grinshteyn,Marie-Claude Couture,Reid Whaley

doi:10.3390/ijerph19042117

Abstract

Minority students experience more discrimination on college campuses, yet little is known about fear of discrimination. This paper (a) establishes a new measure, fear of discriminatory violence, (b) assesses sociodemographic correlates of fear of discriminatory violence, and (c) estimates the effect of fear of discriminatory violence on anxiety and depression. A cross-sectional study using online surveys was undertaken among college students. A zero-inflated negative binomial model estimated the association between sociodemographics and fear of discriminatory violence. Multiple logistic regression models estimated the association between fear of discriminatory violence and anxiety/depression. Fear of discriminatory violence was higher among Black (ME: 11.9, p < 0.0001), Hispanic (ME: 5.9, p < 0.0001), Middle Eastern (ME: 5.4, p = 0.03), Asian (ME: 4.9, p < 0.0001), and multiracial (ME: 2.9, p < 0.0001) students compared with White students; transgender/gender non-conforming (ME: 7.2, p = 0.01) and female (ME: 3.4, p < 0.0001) students compared with male students; and gay (ME: 10.7, p < 0.0001), lesbian (ME: 9.0, p = 0.01), and bisexual students (ME: 3.4, p = 0.001) as well as those with a sexual orientation not included (ME: 5.5, p = 0.001), compared with heterosexual students. Increasing fear of discriminatory violence was associated with increased odds of anxiety (AOR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.06) and depression (AOR: 1.03; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.05). This understudied public health issue should be addressed to prevent fear of discriminatory violence and the resulting mental health consequences among college populations.

Highlights

Discrimination is a serious issue among college students, and racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority students experience discrimination at higher levels than their counterparts
Little is known about fear of discriminatory violence among college students, the determinants of fear of discriminatory violence, and whether experiencing this fear is associated with mental health outcomes
Our results show that racial, gender, and sexual minorities experienced higher levels of fear of discriminatory violence

Summary

Introduction

Discrimination is a serious issue among college students, and racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority students experience discrimination at higher levels than their counterparts. We first discuss the experience of discrimination, hate crimes, hate speech, and microaggressions among racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority college students, and discuss the negative mental health consequences of these experiences. We discuss the scant research available on fear of discrimination, before briefly reviewing fear of other forms of violence and their effects on mental health among college students. While fear of discriminatory violence has yet to be studied, better understanding the experience of discrimination and other forms of fear of violence frames the need to study fear of discriminatory violence and the potential mental health consequences of this fear.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion