The Prevalence and Persistence of Ethnic and Racial Harassment and its Impact on Health: A Longitudinal Analysis

1960年代对少数民族的调查研究使民族和种族歧视的现实成为全国辩论的焦点，在1968年的反歧视立法中发挥了关键作用。尽管有立法，但族裔和种族歧视和骚扰仍然是英国社会的一个特点，尽管对某些群体的歧视有所减少，对另一些群体的歧视有所加剧。这不仅违反了公平和平等社会的原则，而且对健康，特别是精神健康产生了明显的不利影响。最后一次全面的骚扰证据是在1994年收集的，从那时起，关于骚扰的普遍程度及其对英国少数民族健康的影响的统计证据很少。这项研究使用了一个新的大规模数据源，了解社会，在英国少数民族调查目前的流行和类型的种族骚扰及其与心理健康和健康行为，如吸烟，饮酒和体育活动的关系。自2009年以来，理解社会已经采访了大约51，000名成年人，其中包括10，000名少数民族。了解社会数据库的大样本量使我们能够了解谁经历过骚扰，哪里最有可能受到骚扰，以及什么样的骚扰最常见。例如，我们将调查性别，年龄和教育水平如何相互交叉，以产生对语言和身体虐待以及回避或感觉不安全的特殊脆弱性。我们将确定人们在哪些地方更有可能遇到骚扰：在街上，在公共交通工具上，在工作场所？在低或高种族集中的地区，这些可能有什么不同？因为了解社会会随着时间的推移反复询问同一个人关于骚扰的问题，我们不仅可以检查一次性的经历，还可以发现人们在多大程度上报告了持续的骚扰。在英国建立新的骚扰基准估计后，我们将继续测试骚扰对心理健康和健康行为的影响。众所周知，那些经历过骚扰的人更有可能心理健康状况不佳，那些受到骚扰的人可能会转向不健康的应对行为，如饮酒或吸烟。然而，很难确定因果关系，因为遭受骚扰的个人也可能具有人格特征或潜在倾向，这也导致他们心理健康状况不佳或健康行为更差。幸运的是，理解社会将使我们能够建立时间顺序推理，并使用统计技术，使我们能够更好地建立这些关系中的因果关系。此外，我们还可以调查家庭关系、友谊、邻里中同一族裔群体的存在以及归属感和认同感在多大程度上保护遭受骚扰的少数群体免受心理健康和健康行为恶化的影响。在一段时间内重复观察也使我们能够检查骚扰的任何负面影响是否会随着时间的推移而消失，或者重复的经历是否比一次性事件更有压力。这项研究将直接关系到那些与少数群体社区合作的人，如地方政府和地方服务机构，以及关注健康和健康平等的决策者。为了充分利用研究成果，我们将经常与一个以政策为导向的咨询小组会面，他们将帮助我们完善研究问题，并将我们的研究结果传播给那些将从中受益的政府和第三方组织，并为研究合作开发一个平台，以支持更好的共享理解。

Survey research of ethnic minorities in the 1960s brought the reality of ethnic and racial discrimination to the forefront of the national debate, playing a key role in anti-discrimination legislation in 1968. Despite legislation, ethnic and racial discrimination and harassment continues to be a feature of British Society, although this has declined against some groups and intensified against others. Not only does this violate the principle of a fair and equal society, it also has palpable adverse impacts on health, particularly mental health. The last comprehensive evidence of harassment was collected in 1994 and since then there is little statistical evidence about the prevalence of harassment and its impact on the health of ethnic minorities in Britain. This research uses a new, large-scale data source, Understanding Society, on minorities in Britain to investigate the current prevalence and type of ethnic harassment and its relationship to mental health and health behaviours such as smoking, drinking and physical activity. Since 2009, Understanding Society has been interviewing around 51,000 adults, including 10,000 ethnic minorities. The large sample size of the Understanding Society database allows us to look at who experiences harassment, where harassment is most likely, and what kind of harassment is most common. For instance, we will investigate how gender, age and education level intersect to produce particular vulnerabilities to both verbal and physical abuse as well as avoidance or feeling unsafe. We will determine in which locations people are more likely to experience harassment: in the street, on public transport, at the workplace? How might these differ in areas of low or high ethnic concentration? Because Understanding Society asks the same individuals about harassment repeatedly over time, we can examine not only one off experiences but also find to what extent people report persistent harassment. After establishing new benchmark estimates of harassment in the UK, we will go on to test for the impact of harassment on mental health and health behaviours. It is well known that those who experience harassment are more likely to have poor mental health, and that those stressed by harassment may turn to unhealthy coping behaviours such as drinking or tobacco use. However, it is difficult to establish causality, because individuals who experience harassment may also have personality traits or underlying proclivities which also lead them to have poor mental health or worse health behaviours. Fortunately, Understanding Society will enable us to establish time-order reasoning and to use statistical techniques which allow us to better establish causality in these relationships. Moreover, we can also investigate to which extent family relationships, friendships, presence of others of the same ethnic group in the neighbourhood and sense of belonging and identity protects minorities experiencing harassment from worsening mental health and health behaviours. Having repeated observations across time also enables us to examine whether any negative effects of harassment dissipate over time or if repeated experiences are more stressful than one off incidences. This research will have direct relevance to those who work with minority communities such as local governments and local services, as well as policy makers concerned with health and health equality. To make best use of the research we will meet frequently with a policy-orientated advisory group who will help refine our research questions and disseminate our findings to those governmental and third party organisations that will benefit from it, and develop a platform for research co-production to support a better, shared understanding.