Racial Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Older African Americans

Background and Purpose:

Historically racial prejudice against African Americans in the United States has been amply documented. However, previous research has not adequately examined within group differences, which are important for our understanding of variation in older African American’s experiences of life time and everyday discrimination. Limited studies have noted the interplay between perceptions of racism and other contextual factors, such as socioeconomic status, gender, and age. Whether racial discrimination come up from intergroup, intra-group, or institutional encounters, it surely creates a sense of threat or harm and may affect the health and well-being of many African Americans. The purposes of this study are 1) to examine the relationships between racial discrimination and mental health problems and 2) to further investigate the different effect of gender on study variables.

Methods:

This study focused on the older African American sample selected from the National Health Measurement Study (NHMS). Out of total 397 older African Americans, the selected sample consists of female (n=269, 67.8%) and average 73.46 aged adults (SD=5.93). Two different scales of self-perceived discrimination, everyday discrimination (5 items from “never” to “almost every day”) and life-time discrimination (4 items with “yes/no”) were analyzed as independent variables. Psychological well-being instrument measuring purpose in life was included as a mediating variable. The mental health problems were measured by two types of measurements from mental component from SF-36 and depressive symptoms ranging 0-100. Multiple regression models were used to test the statistical significance of predictors on three dependent variables.

Results:

The study found that older African American men more experienced lifetime discrimination than old women group (M = 1.33 versus .55). However, there was no gender difference on the frequency of everyday discrimination (M = 4.36 versus 4.12). In comparison with 6.3% (n=8) of older men, 8.2% (n=22) of older women were clinically diagnosed with depression disorder.  In spite of worsen health conditions of older women group; gender had no statistically significant effects on mental health variables. Mental health problems were further estimated by discrimination and by gender.   The older Men’s model was statistically significant (R² = .184) and the depressive symptomology was significantly explained by only everyday discrimination (β = .270, p =.003) and mediated by purpose of life (β = .336, p =.000). The older Women’s model (R²= .153) had similar significant predictors: everyday discrimination (β = .281, p=.000) and purpose in life (β = .284, p =.000).

Conclusions and Implications:

As expected, institutional lifetime discrimination was much more prevalent for older African American men than older African American women. However, only perceived everyday discrimination was statistically significantly associated with the depressive symptoms for both groups. Compromised psychological well-being was also played as a significant mediator. This study in part attempted to contribute to the literature on the negative mental health correlates of perceived racial discriminations by older African Americans. The study findings would stress a major reason why efforts by social workers should be made to address racial discrimination in their mental health practice.