At the individual level, experiences of discrimination have been shown to be a source of stress that adversely affects health (Williams and Mohammed 2009). Research has documented elevated levels of exposure to both chronic and acute measures of discrimination for socially stigmatized racial and immigrant groups in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Australia and New Zealand (Williams and Mohammed 2009). Exposure to discrimination has been shown to be associated with increased risk of a broad range of indicators of physical and mental illness. In addition, discrimination, like other measures of social stress, adversely affects patterns of health care utilization and adherence behaviors and is predictive of increased risk of using multiple substances to cope with stress including tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs. Several studies have found that, in multiple national contexts, racial discrimination makes an incremental contribution to SES, in accounting for observed racial disparities in health (Williams and Mohammed 2009).
