Experience of Everyday Discrimination by the Brazilian Population
The everyday experience of discrimination is one of the mechanisms through which racism operates and produces inequities in health. Recognizing this reality, the Everyday Discrimination Scale, originally proposed by Professor David Williams of Harvard University, was applied for the first time nationally in Brazil. The scale was the theme of the first round of the More Data More Health survey, carried out by Vital Strategies and UMANE, with government partnership from the Ministry of Racial Equity (MIR), technical partnership from the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel) and support from Instituto Devive.
The results of this approach revealed that black and brown people in Brazil report higher frequency and more reasons for discrimination in everyday life. This analysis is part of an effort to advance understanding of how racism and stress from discrimination can affect the population’s health.
Why does measuring discrimination matter?
Research from around the world indicates that experiences of discrimination represent a form of psychosocial stress, negatively affecting the mental and physical health of people who experience it. Evidence shows that discrimination can be a central element in the racial inequities observed in several health indicators.
In Brazil, discrimination is one of the structural factors of the economic and social disadvantages faced by vulnerable racial groups. Faced with this scenario, the Everyday Discrimination Scale was applied nationally to identify and quantify these experiences, providing evidence for the dimension of the problem.
Data collection on everyday discrimination in Brazil
Data collection for the Everyday Discrimination Scale was done through an online questionnaire, without human interaction. The sample consisted of 2,458 records collected across Brazil between August and September 2024. Seeking greater representativeness for the Brazilian population, sample weights were created from the data collected by the 2022 Census and the 2019 National Health Survey.
To identify the perception of experiences of discrimination, respondents answered the following question:
In your day-to-day life, how often do any of the following things happen to you?
Never
Rarely
Frequently
Always
Situations that were assessed
I am treated with less courtesy than other people are
I am treated with less respect than other people are
I receive poorer service than other people at restaurants or stores
People act as if they think I am not smart
People act as if they are afraid of me
People act as if they think I am dishonest
People act as if they are better than me
I am cursed at with profanity and insults
I am threatened or harassed
I am followed in stores
Key findings
When considering only the “often” and “always” answers, it was observed that experiences of discrimination were more prevalent among respondents who self-identified as black, highlighting three situations that approximately 50% of respondents in this group indicated having experienced.
57,0%
51,2%
49,5%
Among respondents who self-identified as brown:
44,9%
37,4%
32,1%
When asked about the reasons attributed to the experience of discrimination, it was observed that 84.0% of black respondents indicated race as the main reason.
When combining the categories of race and gender, it is noted that black women were most likely to report two or more reasons (72.0%) for their experiences of discrimination.
This intersectional approach, combining different categories of discrimination, is central to the process, since it is essential to consider that individuals often occupy more than one socially disadvantaged position and that these can interact to shape their experiences.
What do these findings mean for public policy?
Understanding the experience of racial discrimination and its effects is a crucial step for the development of interventions and public policies that not only aim to reduce health disparities but also act more broadly to combat structural racism. Although documenting discrimination alone does not correct inequities, the absence of such monitoring makes it difficult to implement effective policies.
The continuous and systematic measurement of discrimination, using standardized instruments such as the Everyday Discrimination Scale, contributes to the construction of a more accurate diagnosis of the situation. Tools like this enable more robust monitoring of the impacts of discrimination and enable the formulation of evidence-based interventions, complementing qualitative approaches and population analyses.
It is necessary to understand that racism and the acts of racial discrimination derived from it, in addition to being a matter of individual experience, are a structural problem that demands articulated and intersectoral action. The intersectional approach plays a central role in this process, as different forms of oppression overlap and amplify negative health impacts, especially for historically marginalized groups such as black women.
Despite the challenges and limitations in measuring discrimination, measuring this phenomenon makes it possible not only to understand its distribution and magnitude, but also to develop more targeted public policies. To advance in this direction, it is essential to strengthen research on effective interventions to mitigate the effects of racism on health, as well as expand intersectional approaches and consider regional variations in the experiences of discrimination in Brazil.
Addressing racial disparities in health requires an integrated effort from multiple sectors of society. Concrete measures, such as the inclusion of the assessment of racial discrimination in continuous national surveys and the development of localized strategies sensitive to different social contexts, are fundamental to transform this knowledge into effective action.
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The everyday experience of discrimination is one of the mechanisms through which racism operates and produces inequities in health. Recognizing this reality, the Everyday Discrimination Scale, originally proposed by Professor David Williams of Harvard University, was applied for the first time nationally in Brazil. The scale was the theme of the first round of the […]
