Seeing Discrimination: How Different Definitions of Discrimination Relate to Health in U.S. Adults

Research demonstrates that perceived discrimination negatively impacts health. Yet there is conflicting evidence about how an individual’s definition of discrimination—separate from their experience of discrimination—shapes health disparities. Using a nationally representative survey experiment in which participants (N = 2,000) are asked to evaluate nine different scenarios of potential discrimination, we find that how a person labels these discrimination scenarios is significantly related to their self-rated health, even after controlling for sociodemographic factors. U.S. adults who are more likely to label the event as discrimination in cases where it is intentional have comparatively worse self-rated health, whereas those who are more likely to label discrimination in cases where it affects more powerful groups (White people, men, and the wealthy) have comparatively better self-rated health—even though they are not experiencing the discrimination themselves. We argue that these findings have important implications for how health researchers measure discrimination’s health effects.