Quantifying the longitudinal impacts of primary and vicarious racial discrimination on the mental health of ethnic minority young people in UK households
The relatively poor mental health of minority ethnic groups in the UK is well documented, but the ethnicity gap has been shown to widen throughout the life-course. Therefore, the differing life experiences of ethnic minority young people and their white counterparts have been identified as a contributing factor of the worsening of ethnic minority mental health. One such factor is exposure to racial discrimination, whether experienced first-hand (primary), or second-hand (vicariously). Whilst current academic discourse highlights the need for projects to explore the relationship between varying experiences of racism and later mental ill-health, research in the area remains sparse, and limited to countries outside of the UK.
This project aims to fill this research gap by linking the core Understanding Society dataset, the ethnic minority boost dataset, and a new family matrix dataset, to quantify the longitudinal impacts of primary and vicarious racial discrimination on the mental health of ethnic minority young people in UK households.
The results from this project will have research and policy implications. As a pioneering study, the research will form the foundation for future research to build the evidence base, and the creation of an ethnic minority specific family matrix will aid future research concerning complex family dynamics within minority ethnic groups. In addition, the results of the project should be of particular interest to policy-makers, and outputs will highlight specific findings that require addressing, whilst offering recommendations on potential policy and practice based actions.
