Raise your hand
if you’ve felt that people treat you with less respect or courtesy than
others, that they act as if you’re not smart, that you get poorer
service in stores and restaurants than others — in short, if you’ve
felt discriminated against because of age, gender, ethnicity, income,
disability, appearance, even marital status.
A
startling proportion of older people report that they’ve experienced
discrimination: 63 percent, in a study recently published in Research
on Aging. The most commonly cited cause? “Thirty percent report being
mistreated because of their age,” said the lead author Ye Luo, a
Clemson University sociologist. Perceived discrimination because of
gender, race or ancestry, disabilities or appearance followed in
smaller proportions.
That’s
a sorry enough state of affairs, but it’s all the more troubling
because of an additional finding: over a two-year period, everyday
discrimination is associated with higher rates of depression and poorer
self-rated health.
Dr.
Luo and her colleagues used national data from the federal Health and
Retirement Study to measure what nearly 6,400 people — all older than
age 53 when the study began in 2006 – thought about discriminatory
behavior. Dr. Luo wasn’t surprised by the high proportion of people who
said they had encountered it. That was consistent, she says, with
previous studies.
As
the researchers had expected, some people were more likely to report
discrimination than others. Blacks, those who were separated or
divorced or widowed, and those with fewer household assets had higher
levels of perceived discrimination, as measured by questionnaires. It
was less commonly perceived by whites, by the married or partnered, and
by those with more assets.
Two
years after the initial survey, those who perceived higher levels of
discrimination had poorer health outcomes. After the researchers
controlled for general stress (financial problems, for instance, or
traumatic events or chronic illnesses), the most significant effects of
discrimination were higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower
self-rated health. (The depression effect is particularly troubling,
because a recent analysis of Medicare data, published in the American
Journal of Public Health, shows that blacks who have depression are
less likely than non-Hispanic whites to be treated for it.)
Interestingly,
the discrimination effect was stronger for everyday slights and
suspicions (including whether people felt harassed or threatened, or
whether they felt others were afraid of them) than for more dramatic
events like being denied a job or promotion or being unfairly detained
or questioned by police.
“Awful
things happen and it’s a big shock, but people have ways to resist that
damage,” Dr. Luo said. “With maturity, people learn coping skills.”
Everyday
discrimination works differently, apparently. “It may be more difficult
to avoid or adapt to,” Dr. Luo suggested. “It takes a toll you may not
even realize.”
The
toll may be greater than the study reports, in fact, because only two
years passed between the first and second survey. With 2010 data now
available, Dr. Luo and her team may gain greater insight into the
continuing effects of perceived discrimination.
Aside
from that short duration, another reason for caution is that we’re
dealing with the respondents’ perceptions. Are people really treating
them differently because of their age or race or weight? We can’t know.
Still,
if one needed another reason to try to tackle age discrimination, or
any sort of discrimination, here it is. It’s apparently not good for
older people’s health.
