Measuring Self-Reported Discrimination: Trends in Question Wording Used in Publicly Accessible Datasets

Research on Americans’ self-reported experiences of discrimination or unfair treatment (hereafter collectively referred to as differential treatment) has proliferated since the 1960s. Despite the growth of this research, some health scholars express concern about how to effectively measure self-reported experiences of differential treatment. Specifically, it has been suggested that the term discrimination is emotionally charged and that more neutral terms, such as unfair treatment, should be used instead. This study documents trends in question wording used to capture self-reported differential treatment in publicly accessible U.S. health and social science surveys. Our systematic review of 221 publicly available surveys reveals that there was a slight decline in social scientists’ use of the once dominant term discrimination. Yet, there has been no consensus in question wording in health surveys, as health scholars increasingly use discrimination, unfair treatment, or other (e.g., because you are) or multiple terms ( discrimination or unfair treatment) at nearly equal frequencies. We conclude by discussing the potential implications of these shifts and disciplinary variations in question wording on discrimination research and highlighting several important directions for future research.