The prevalence, distribution, and mental health correlates of perceived discrimination in the United States

The survey data presented here are on the national prevalences of major lif etime perceived discrimination and day-to-day perceived discrimination; the associations between perceived discrimination and mental health; and the e xtent to which differential exposure and differential emotional reactivity to perceived discrimination account for the well-known associations between disadvantaged social status and mental health, Although more prevalent amo ng people with disadvantaged social status, results show that perceived dis crimination is common in the total population, with 33.5 percent of respond ents in the total sample reporting exposure to major lifetime discriminatio n and 60.9 percent reporting exposure to day-to-day discrimination. The ass ociations of perceived discrimination with mental health are comparable in magnitude to those of other more commonly studied stressors, and these asso ciations do not vary consistently across subsamples defined on the basis of social status. Even though perceived discrimination explains only a small parr of the observed associations between disadvantaged social status and m ental health, given its high prevalence, wide distribution, and strong asso ciations with mental health, perceived discrimination needs to be treated m uch more seriously than in the past in future studies of stress and mental health.