Study: Discrimination leads to stress

More than half of U.S. adults say they have experienced discrimination at the workplace, from police or in other situations, a phenomenon linked to high stress levels and poor health, according to a study released Thursday by the American Psychological Association.

The study is based on a survey of 3,361 adults last August by Harris Poll for the association.

The association surveys Americans annually on the subject of stress, but has focused on discrimination in recent years because it appears to be a growing cause of stress, Jaime Diaz-Granados, APA's executive director for education, said in a telephone interview. The organization decided to focus on it specifically in this most recent study given recent events involving clashes between police and black people and Hispanic people that have fueled racial tensions, Diaz-Granados said.

"What we found was there clearly was a link between discrimination and stress," Diaz-Granados said. "It went across all groups. We found that those folks who reported discrjmination reported a higher level of stress as well as poor health as compared to cohorts in the same group that reported not experiencing discrimination."

The experience went across many groups and focused on race and ethnicity, disabilities and gender differences, he said. People also reported their discrimination-induced stress levels had risen over the last year.

.Almost 70% of adults say they have experienced discrimination and 61% say they have experienced it on a day-to-day basis in the form of poor service, threats, lack of courtesy or respect and the like, the association reports.

Reports of discrimination were most widespread among black Americans, the association said.

More than 75% of black people surveyed said they experience day-to-day discrimination and about 40% of black men said they have been treated unfairly by police. That includes being searched, threatened or abused, they reported.

Almost a third of black and Hispanic adults told surveyors that they are hypervigilant about their appearance in order to be treated well, get good service or avoid harassment, according to the APA. This hypervigilance may be leading to added stress, the organization said.

Almost one-fourth of adults who described their health as fair or poor also reported they have higher stress than average, according to the association.

"It's clear that discrimination is widespread and impacts many people," said Jaime Diaz-Granados, the APA's executive director for education. "When people frequently experience unfair treatment, it can contribute to increased stress and poorer health."

The American Journal of Public Health and The Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race have devoted entire issues to the subject of racism and stress.

A study by University of Arizona doctoral candidate Kathryn Freeman Anderson published in 2012 in Sociological Inquiry found that 18.2% of black Americans experienced emotional stress and 9.8% experienced physical stress, compared to 3.5% and 1.6% of whites respectively.