Racism experienced by minority children on rise in U.S.: research

NEW YORK, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Parental reporting of racism experienced by children in minority groups in the United States increased by 2.6 percent between 2016 and 2020, Medical Xpress reported on Thursday, citing a new research published in the open access Journal of Osteopathic Medicine.

"The most impacted groups were Indigenous and Black children, with 15 percent reported as experiencing racism in 2020," it noted.

The researchers found that racial/ethnic discrimination reported by parents of children from minority groups increased from 6.7 percent in 2016 to approximately 9.3 percent in 2020. Indigenous children were reported to experience discrimination at high rates ranging from 10.8 percent in 2016 to 15.7 percent in 2020.

For Black children the values ranged from 9.69 percent in 2018 to 15.04 percent in 2020. The percent of Asian, Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and Hispanic children reported to have experienced discrimination was between 4.4 percent and 6.8 percent during this time, it said.

These findings are especially important because exposure to discrimination in early childhood is well-established as an adverse event that can have long-term consequences on health, it added.