Original studyFrontiers in Public Health, 2026Read the paper →
For teenagers experiencing racism, mental health support may need to address more than distress in isolation. A Colorado school survey links encountering several different forms of racism with depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts, while showing that the pattern of experiences differs between groups.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus analysed the 2023 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey. Their study, published in Frontiers in Public Health, used data from 49,989 high school students and examined associations separately among Asian American, Black, and Hispanic adolescents.
Students answered questions about unfair treatment at school, being followed by security staff in shops, assumptions that they were less intelligent, and seeing family members treated unfairly. Researchers counted how many of these four types each student reported, grouping three or four together.
That measure does not reveal how frequently incidents occurred or how severe they were. The findings therefore concern several types of racism rather than a measured number of repeated incidents over time.
Mental health questions covered prolonged sadness or hopelessness that interrupted usual activities, seriously considering suicide, making a suicide plan, and attempting suicide. The depressive symptom question was not a clinical assessment establishing a diagnosis of depression.
Across the three groups, students reporting three or more forms of racism had higher adjusted odds of adverse mental health outcomes than those reporting none. The analyses accounted for gender, school grade, and sexual orientation, but could not eliminate every possible explanation for the relationships.
Among Asian American students, the adjusted odds of considering suicide were 7.8 times those of students reporting no racism experiences. The estimate was uncertain, with a confidence interval spanning 2.7 to 22.5, and an odds ratio is not the same as a multiplication of someone’s absolute risk.
The corresponding association with considering suicide was 2.9 among Black students and 4.3 among Hispanic students. These are comparisons within each group, not evidence that one racial or ethnic identity itself causes greater vulnerability.
Types of discrimination also varied. Around 21% of Black students reported being presumed less intelligent because of race or ethnicity, while about 23% of Asian American students reported unfair treatment of family members.
The study has clear limits. It was a one-time survey relying on students’ reports, so it cannot establish which experiences came first or prove that racism caused a particular mental health outcome.
Some groups were too small for the detailed models, and Colorado’s findings may not transfer directly to other places. The questions also missed wider structural and culturally specific forms of racism that could matter to young people’s lives.
The researchers recommend that schools consider discrimination alongside the support they already provide for emotional distress. Their proposals include culturally responsive services, staff and student training, and asking young people about their particular experiences rather than treating all minority students as one group.
Anyone affected by suicidal thoughts in the UK can contact Samaritans free on 116 123. Immediate danger requires emergency help through 999.
