High Fear of Discriminatory Violence among Racial, Gender, and Sexual Minority College Students and Its Association with Anxiety and Depression

Erin Grinshteyn, Reid Whaley and Marie-Claude Couture
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Erin Grinshteyn: Health Professions Department, School of Nursing and Health Professions, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA
Reid Whaley: Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
Marie-Claude Couture: Health Professions Department, School of Nursing and Health Professions, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: Minority students experience more discrimination on college campuses, yet little is known about fear of discrimination. This paper (a) establishes a new measure, fear of discriminatory violence, (b) assesses sociodemographic correlates of fear of discriminatory violence, and (c) estimates the effect of fear of discriminatory violence on anxiety and depression. A cross-sectional study using online surveys was undertaken among college students. A zero-inflated negative binomial model estimated the association between sociodemographics and fear of discriminatory violence. Multiple logistic regression models estimated the association between fear of discriminatory violence and anxiety/depression. Fear of discriminatory violence was higher among Black (ME: 11.9, p < 0.0001), Hispanic (ME: 5.9, p < 0.0001), Middle Eastern (ME: 5.4, p = 0.03), Asian (ME: 4.9, p < 0.0001), and multiracial (ME: 2.9, p < 0.0001) students compared with White students; transgender/gender non-conforming (ME: 7.2, p = 0.01) and female (ME: 3.4, p < 0.0001) students compared with male students; and gay (ME: 10.7, p < 0.0001), lesbian (ME: 9.0, p = 0.01), and bisexual students (ME: 3.4, p = 0.001) as well as those with a sexual orientation not included (ME: 5.5, p = 0.001), compared with heterosexual students. Increasing fear of discriminatory violence was associated with increased odds of anxiety (AOR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.06) and depression (AOR: 1.03; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.05). This understudied public health issue should be addressed to prevent fear of discriminatory violence and the resulting mental health consequences among college populations.

Keywords: fear; racial discrimination; gender discrimination; sexual discrimination; mental health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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