Exposing Racial Discrimination: Implicit & Explicit Measures–The My Body, My Story Study of 1005 US-Born Black & White Community Health Center Members

Abstract

BackgroundTo date, research on racial discrimination and health typically has employed explicit self-report measures, despite their potentially being affected by what people are able and willing to say. We accordingly employed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) for racial discrimination, first developed and used in two recent published studies, and measured associations of the explicit and implicit discrimination measures with each other, socioeconomic and psychosocial variables, and smoking.Methodology/Principal FindingsAmong the 504 black and 501 white US-born participants, age 35–64, randomly recruited in 2008–2010 from 4 community health centers in Boston, MA, black participants were over 1.5 times more likely (p<0.05) to be worse off economically (e.g., for poverty and low education) and have higher social desirability scores (43.8 vs. 28.2); their explicit discrimination exposure was also 2.5 to 3.7 times higher (p<0.05) depending on the measure used, with over 60% reporting exposure in 3 or more domains and within the last year. Higher IAT scores for target vs. perpetrator of discrimination occurred for the black versus white participants: for “black person vs. white person”: 0.26 vs. 0.13; and for “me vs. them”: 0.24 vs. 0.19. In both groups, only low non-significant correlations existed between the implicit and explicit discrimination measures; social desirability was significantly associated with the explicit but not implicit measures. Although neither the explicit nor implicit discrimination measures were associated with odds of being a current smoker, the excess risk for black participants (controlling for age and gender) rose in models that also controlled for the racial discrimination and psychosocial variables; additional control for socioeconomic position sharply reduced and rendered the association null.ConclusionsImplicit and explicit measures of racial discrimination are not equivalent and both warrant use in research on racial discrimination and health, along with data on socioeconomic position and social desirability.

Age, class and race discrimination: their interactions and associations with mental health among Brazilian university students

“…This is significant, given that the literature on discrimination and (mental) health has emphasized unfair treatments attributed to race 5,34 . Even though a recent literature review has shown that many types of discrimination are harmful to health 8 , other authors indicate that it is problematic to consider self-reported racial discrimination as synonymous with unfair treatment without attribution 35 . In addition to allowing the examination of health effects of different types of discrimination, a broader approach to discriminatory experiences enables the assessment of theoretically relevant interactions, such as the one we observed in the present analysis, involving age, class, and skin color/race.…”

“…This assertion is also being examined in emerging research on implicit measures of individuals as targets of discrimination 35 . Our findings, however, do not necessarily contradict alternative theories postulating that attributions to discrimination may have self-protective effects 41 .…”

“…It is possible that attributing differential treatment experiences to discrimination may be self-protective for other health-related outcomes, and in specific interaction contexts. In fact, this contention needs to be systematically addressed in future studies using both explicit and implicit measures, as well as assessment of social desirability bias 35 .…”

Depression in Racial and Ethnic Minorities: the Impact of Nativity and Discrimination

“…Discrimination has well-documented negative consequences on mental health [20][21][22], and racial and ethnic minorities feel the effects of discrimination directly. However, American-born minorities report more experiences of discrimination compared to those foreign-born individuals [20,[40][41][42], due to heightened awareness or a different sense of social justice (compared to foreign-born), ultimately leading to a greater stress effect and higher rate of depression [21,22,40]. Consequently, although immigrants may engage in tobacco smoking and excessive alcohol consumption prior to migration, the intensity and frequency may increase as a response to discrimination and socioeconomic stress [43,44].…”

“…Although there is a decreasing trend of smoking and excessive alcohol consumption in foreign-born minorities as compared to their American-born counterparts, these behaviors still persist and are germane to the outcome of depression [47][48][49][50][51]. Furthermore, discrimination and demographic measures may moderate these relationships [20,41].…”