Discrimination, Coping Strategies, and Depression Among Puerto Ricans in Boston

Background and Purpose

Discrimination is a pervasive social problem that shapes and perpetuates the hierarchical differentiation between advantaged and disadvantaged population. Studies have demonstrated that exposure to discrimination has deleterious consequences on the mental health of racial and ethnic minority groups. Identifying strategies for coping with discrimination is crucial for empowering targeted individuals to develop and choose approaches that are effective at buffering the impact of discrimination on health. It is also likely that coping strategies and their effectiveness may vary by race and ethnicity, as each group has a different cultural background and unequal social resources to support the coping approaches.

The present study focuses on discrimination experiences and coping strategies among Puerto Ricans, one of the largest Latino subgroups in the U.S. Puerto Ricans have a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders than other Latino subgroups. However. research on discrimination, coping strategy, and mental health for this population remains sparse, and is highly needed. The purpose of this study is to examine the 12 types of coping strategies of Puerto Ricans in mitigating the negative influence of recent discrimination on developing depression.

Methods

The data were from the 2015 Boston Puerto Rican Health Study. The sample consisted of 924 Puerto Rican adults in the Boston, MA metro area. Depression was measured by the Center for Epidemiology Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale, where the standard cut-off score of 16 or greater suggests a risk of clinical depression. Perceived discrimination was measured by the Everyday Discrimination Scale. Stress coping strategies included active coping, planning, positive reframing, acceptance, humor, religion, emotional support, self-distraction, denial, venting, substance abuse, and behavioral disengagement. Using logistic regression, we examined the independent and joint contributions of discrimination and coping strategies on the risk for depression.

Results

Our results confirmed that more exposure to discrimination is associated with higher prevalence of depression, and more endorsement of all kinds of coping strategies were associated with lower odds of depression. The results also revealed the moderating roles of several coping strategies in the association between discrimination and depression. Coping strategies, including acceptance, humor, religion, and emotional support, buffered the impact of discrimination on depression.

Conclusions and Implications

Our study identified several effective coping strategies that mitigated the risk of depression in response to discrimination. The results of the present study offer meaningful implications for social work profession in closing the health gap by race and ethnicity. In specific, our findings offer guidance on developing culturally sensitive therapy for Puerto Ricans that promotes the use of acceptance, humor, religion, and emotional support to reduce the detrimental effects of discrimination on their mental health. Given that the ability to use certain coping strategies is contingent on the availability of supporting social resources, interventions that promote access to the sources of identified coping methods, such as social support and network, will be crucial to buffer against negative effects of discrimination.