Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Mar 20;19(1):325.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-019-6649-9.

Perceived discrimination, health and mental health among immigrants in Norway: the role of moderating factors

Melanie Lindsay Straiton  1 , Arild Kjell Aambø  2 , Rune Johansen  3
Affiliations

Perceived discrimination, health and mental health among immigrants in Norway: the role of moderating factors

Melanie Lindsay Straiton et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Ethnic discrimination is a relatively common experience among immigrants and ethnic minorities. The experience of discrimination can have detrimental effects on an individual's health and well-being. This study investigated the association between perceived discrimination and general health and mental health among immigrants in Norway, in order to identify potential protective factors.

Methods: Using data from the Living Conditions Survey among Immigrants 2016, our sample consisted of 4294 participants aged 16-66 years from 12 different countries. Participants were asked about a variety of themes including health and mental health, perceived discrimination, sense of belonging and language proficiency.

Results: Around 27% of participants reported perceived discrimination. While perceived discrimination was not associated with general health, logistic regression analyses indicated that it was associated with 1.86 higher odds of mental health problems, even after adjusting for sociodemographic and psychosocial variables. Further, interaction analyses suggested that sense of belonging and trust in others moderated the relationship. Those with higher levels of trust did not have increased odds of mental health problems when experiencing discrimination, while those with low levels of trust did. In line with rejection sensitivity theory, the association between perceived discrimination and mental health was stronger for participants who had a strong sense of belonging to their own country of origin but not to Norway compared with those who had a sense of belonging to both.

Conclusions: Improved integration strategies could potentially improve the mental health of immigrants as well as increase the acceptability of diversity, which in turn, could reduce discrimination towards immigrants. Limitations and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Keywords: Discrimination; Ethnic identity; Mental health; Migrant health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

We made use of a secondary anonymised dataset collected by Statistics Norway. Because the dataset was anonymised, specific ethical approval was not required for this study and was waved by the Norwegian Centre for Research data. A confidentiality agreement with the Norwegian Centre for Research Data was signed in order to use the data. We conducted the analyses in accordance with the Norwegian Centre for Research Data’s data protection regulations.

Consent to participate was not needed due to the retrospective nature of the study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable as this was an anonymised secondary data source.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Interaction between perceived discrimination and trust in others for the probability of mental health problems
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Interaction between perceived discrimination and sense of belonging for the probability of mental health problems
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Eurostat . Migrants in Europe: A statistical portrait of the first and second generation. Luxembourg: Eurostat; 2011.
    1. Bhugra D. Migration and mental health. Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2004;109(4):243–258. - PubMed
    1. Diaz E, Kumar BN, Gimeno-Feliu LA, Calderon-Larranaga A, Poblador-Pou B, Prados-Torres A. Multimorbidity among registered immigrants in Norway: the role of reason for migration and length of stay. Tropical Med Int Health. 2015;20(12):1805–1814. - PubMed
    1. Abebe DS, Lien L, Hjelde KH. What we know and don’t know about mental health problems among immigrants in Norway. J Immigr Minor Health. 2014;16:60–67. - PubMed
    1. Chen W, Hall BJ, Ling L, Renzaho AM. Pre-migration and post-migration factors associated with mental health in humanitarian migrants in Australia and the moderation effect of post-migration stressors: findings from the first wave data of the BNLA cohort study. Lancet Psychiatry. 2017;4(3):218–229. - PubMed