Giving Compass' Take:

• Patti Verbanas highlights a study that shows that black teenagers experience daily racial discrimination (most often online) that can lead to negative mental health effects.

• How can we collaborate to make racial discrimination prevention a public health imperative? 

• Learn how education level and gender impact racial discrimination.


The study in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, examines how often black teens experience racial discrimination each day, either personally or vicariously and online or offline.

The researchers surveyed 101 black youth between ages 13 and 17 from predominantly black neighborhoods in Washington, DC, each day for two weeks about their experiences with racial discrimination and measured changes in their depressive symptoms across that period. The teens reported more than 5,600 experiences of racial discrimination in total—an average of more than five experiences per day.

“This research reflects what researchers and activists have asserted for years: Black adolescents are forced to face antiblack microaggressions on a daily basis. Importantly, this study expands the research on the many ways that discrimination happens, whether it is being teased by peers, asked to speak for their racial group in class, or seeing a racist post on social media,” says lead author Devin English, an assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Public Health.

Read the full article about racial discrimination prevention by Patti Verbanas at Futurity.