The Role of Discrimination in Social Safety and its Interplay with Adolescents’ Mental Health and Substance Use: A Network Perspective

Discrimination, as experienced by adolescents, represents a major societal issue with implications for mental health and risky health behaviors. Yet the interplay between these factors in the context of social safety in urban living environments remains insufficiently understood and was explored in the current study. Participants were 1,675 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 17.44 years, SD = 0.36; 56.6% girls) who participated in the ABCD-study. This subjective data was combined with objective neighborhood indicators from the GECCO‑consortium. Cross-sectional network analyses revealed discrimination, urban hassles, and sense of neighborhood security as central nodes connecting objective neighborhood social safety with anxiety/depression symptoms and substance use. Discrimination was negatively associated with sense of security and alcohol use; but positively with urban hassles experiences, which was directly related to higher levels of depressive symptoms and cannabis use. Everyday discrimination was indirectly related to mental health through reduced well-being and weaker social support, and directly linked to urban hassles and cannabis use. The significantly higher global strength in girls may suggest heightened sensitivity to discrimination and related stressors. Highlighting the importance of discrimination in adolescents’ perceptions of neighborhood social safety and its connections with psychological distress, these findings call for longitudinal research to clarify pathways within residential environments.