Effects of Perceived Discrimination on Behavioral Health Outcomes in People Aging With Traumatic Brain Injury

Objective: To evaluate major and everyday experiences of discrimination (MED and EED, respectively) in relation to behavioral health outcomes in people with traumatic brain injury (PwTBI). Setting: Outpatient research laboratory. Participants: Adults, 50 years or older, with a chronic (1+ year) history of moderate or severe TBI (N = 118). Design: Cross-sectional observational study. Main Measures: MED and EED (primary measures of interest) and behavioral health outcomes: global cognition, psychological symptoms, neurobehavioral symptoms, societal participation, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). In participants with available geodata (N = 28), neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation (ND) was examined as a potential contributor to MED, EED, and measured outcomes. Results: EED and MED were significantly associated with psychological symptoms, neurobehavioral symptoms, and HRQoL after correction for multiple comparisons. Counter to expectations, EED were related to higher societal participation. MED and EED were unrelated to cognition. When MED and EED were entered together in hierarchical regressions, only EED made significant contributions beyond demographic and injury-related covariates to each outcome. Sensitivity analyses revealed that most of these relationships were not solely accounted for by disability-related discrimination. ND showed negligible associations with discrimination but moderate effect sizes for cognition and participation. Race was not significantly related to discrimination and was not a significant predictor in regression models but was strongly associated with ND. Conclusion: The current data provide preliminary support for perceived discrimination as an important factor in neurobehavioral and psychosocial health, but not cognitive performance, after TBI. These relationships appear to be driven by daily experiences of discriminatory treatment versus single major instances of injustice. Measured outcomes may also reflect socioeconomic challenges and structural discrimination faced by diverse PwTBI, although more work in this area is urgently needed. Multiple sources of marginalization and disenfranchisement and their functional effects should be considered in TBI rehabilitation and outcome monitoring.