Everyday Discrimination and Adolescents’ Mental Health: Evidence From an Ecological Momentary Assessment

Adolescents who report discrimination experience worse mental health. However, most research has been cross-sectional and retrospective. This study investigated how prospectively-assessed day-to-day perceptions of everyday discrimination relate to mental health symptoms in 395 adolescents across a 14-day ecological momentary assessment. Black adolescents reported discrimination on more days (15%) than White adolescents (6%), as did economically disadvantaged (11%) versus non-disadvantaged adolescents (6%). On days adolescents reported experiencing versus not experiencing discrimination, they reported elevated depression, anxiety, inattention (βs = 0.06-0.10), and conduct problem (OR = 3.03) symptoms. Cross-lagged multi-level models showed few next-day associations, except that discrimination predicted adolescents’ next-day inattention (but not vice-versa; β = .06) and conduct problems predicted next-day discrimination reports (OR = 1.73; but not vice versa). Findings highlight that, even at this young age, Black and economically disadvantaged adolescents report frequent exposure to everyday discrimination, with robust linkages between perceived discrimination and same-day mental health symptoms.