==== Front
Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.973
igaa057.973
Abstracts
Session 2935 (Poster)
Mental and Psychological Health
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Association Between Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Older Blacks: A Pilot Study
Arnold Tomorrow 1 Polenick Courtney 1 Blow Frederic 2 1 
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
2 
University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”304 304
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Racial minority status may be a major source of both acute and chronic stress (e.g., racial discrimination) that contributes to depression among older adults. Indeed, older African Americans experience more psychological distress than their White counterparts largely due to chronic stressors including racism. Yet, little is known about particular aspects of racial discrimination that are most strongly associated with depressive symptoms in middle and later life. The present study is a part of an ongoing pilot project and sought to examine the associations between discrimination experienced in the past month [i.e., perceived ethnic/racial discrimination (PED), everyday discrimination (ED), and heightened vigilance to discrimination (HVD)] and past-month depressive symptoms among Black/African American adults aged 50 to 80 (N = 106). More frequent PED was associated with greater severity in overall depressive symptoms as well as affective and somatic symptoms individually. More frequent ED was associated with greater affect symptom severity only. Increased HVD was associated with greater overall depressive symptom severity, particularly affective symptoms. Discrimination was also differently correlated with specific depressive symptoms. PED was associated with back pain, anhedonia, loss of interest in sex, difficulty breathing, anxiousness, inability to concentrate, and suicidal ideation. Greater ED was associated with anhedonia, chest pain, and feelings of guilt/self-reproach. Higher HVD was associated with chest pain and feelings of guilt/self-reproach. These results suggest that experienced discrimination and attempts to prepare for these experiences may play a role in the presentation of depressive symptomatology and vary by type of symptoms experienced among older Blacks.