Racial and gender differences in discrimination and psychological distress among young adults.

Racial and gender differences in the effects of discrimination on health are well-established. The evidence has derived largely from studies of older adults, with less attention paid to younger adults. The current study takes an intersectional approach to address this gap. Using nationally representative, longitudinal data from the 2017 and 2019 Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transitioning to Adulthood Supplement (PSID-TAS), we assess the effects of everyday discrimination on psychological distress among Black and White young adults aged 18-28 (n = 3894). We examine cumulative discrimination and individual items of the cumulative measure based on the Everyday Discrimination Scale. The analysis reveals that perceived discrimination is positively associated with psychological distress for each race-gender group. However, the magnitude of the association varied by group and dimension of discrimination. Black men and women reported more frequent experiences of each type of discrimination than their White counterparts. The positive association between discrimination and distress, however, was lower for Black men and women relative to White men- suggesting that White men may be more sensitive to and/or less resilient against the effects of perceived discrimination. In contrast, associations for White women did not differ significantly from those of White men. Our findings demonstrate that the health-harming effects of discrimination on psychological distress begin early in the life course and suggest that resilience-based coping mechanisms found in older samples of Black adults may also exist for younger adults.

Does an Immigrant Health Advantage Exist Among US Whites? Evidence from a Nationally-Representative Examination of Mental and Physical Well-Being.

This study examines whether an immigrant health advantage exists among US Whites, a group often used as a reference category in research on racial and ethnic health disparities. Using recent data from the National Health Interview Survey (2019-2022), I disaggregate non-Hispanic White adults (n = 41,752) by nativity status and use logistic regression models to assess differences in six measures of mental and physical health. The analysis includes self-reported conditions (depression, anxiety, fair/poor self-rated health) and diagnosed conditions that require interaction with the healthcare system (hypertension, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD). Foreign-born Whites have a significantly lower prevalence of each health outcome relative to US-born Whites. The immigrant health advantage remains significant for depression, anxiety, fair/poor health (i.e., self-reported conditions) and diagnosed hypertension, after adjusting for sociodemographic and healthcare characteristics. In contrast, the inclusion of these explanatory factors reduces the nativity gap in diagnosed diabetes and COPD to non-significance. Overall, the results indicate important variation in health among Whites that is missed in studies that focus on US-born Whites, alone. Scholars must continue to monitor the health of White immigrants, who are projected to grow to 20% of the US immigrant population in the years to come.

Disparities in functional disability among Arab Americans by nativity, immigrant arrival cohort, and country of birth.

This study contributes to a growing literature that documents the importance of arrival cohort and country of birth for differentiating the health of U.S. immigrants. We use nationally-representative data from nine years of the American Community Survey (2008-2016) to examine if an immigrant health advantage exists among Arab Americans ages 40+ (n = 49,867) and test if differences among the foreign-born vary by arrival cohort (pre-1991, 1991-2000, and 2001+). Results from multivariate logistic regression models find that foreign-born Arab Americans have higher odds of physical and self-care disability, and this varies by immigrant arrival cohort. The post-2001 cohort had the highest odds of both disabilities, while the earlier two cohorts did not differ from the native-born after adjustments for covariates. Compositional differences in birthplace, particularly the large influx of immigrants from Iraq in the most recent cohort, explained these differences. Political instabilities globally have contributed to a growing number of U.S. immigrants with vulnerabilities that might be overlooked when arrival cohorts are not considered.