Perceived racial discrimination and polysubstance use among African American and Afro-Caribbean adults: Results from the National Survey of American Life

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between perceived racial discrimination (PRD) and patterns of substance use. Data come from the 2001–2003 National Survey of American Life (N = 3,589). PRD was derived from the Major Experiences of Discrimination Scale. Multinomial logistic regression estimated the relationship between PRD and patterns of substance use (i.e., never/former, single-substance, dual-substance, and polysubstance [3+ substances]) based on six substances; effect modification by ethnicity and sex was assessed by stratification. Study findings indicated that PRD was associated with greater odds of lifetime and current polysubstance use. Results from the effect modification analyses suggested differential associations by ethnicity and sex.

Keywords:

• Polysubstance use
• discrimination
• race
• ethnicity
• minority health

Acknowledgements

This study used data from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research’s Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES). The authors would like to thank the researchers who compiled and harmonized the CPES data for public use.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research at https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The NSAL is sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health under grant number U01-MH57716, with additional support from the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the NIH and the University of Michigan. The funding sponsors had no role in study design, data analysis or interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to publish the results.