Racial or ethnic discrimination and a weak sense of belonging at school are each linked to suicidal thoughts among adolescents, but the two factors do not appear to combine into an amplified risk, according to a brief research report published in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Drawing on survey data from 1,169 California adolescents aged 12 to 17, the researchers found that teens who reported racial or ethnic discrimination had significantly higher odds of suicidal ideation, while those who reported a stronger sense of belonging at school had significantly lower odds. Contrary to the study’s hypotheses, neither factor moderated the other, and civic engagement measures also failed to show a protective association.
The study used cross-sectional data from the 2021 California Health Interview Survey, a large population-based survey of state residents. The analytic sample included 1,169 adolescents with an average age of 14.57 years and a standard deviation of 1.67. The researchers examined whether racial or ethnic discrimination was associated with higher odds of suicidal ideation, and whether civic engagement and sense of belonging moderated that concurrent association. Because the data were collected at a single point in time, the findings describe associations rather than causal effects.
Binary logistic regressions showed that racial or ethnic discrimination was significantly associated with higher odds of suicidal ideation, with an adjusted odds ratio of 2.29 and a 95 percent confidence interval of 1.46 to 3.58, at p less than .001. In practical terms, adolescents who reported experiencing racial or ethnic discrimination had more than twice the odds of reporting suicidal thoughts compared with those who did not, after accounting for the other variables in the models.
Sense of belonging at school moved in the opposite direction. It was significantly associated with lower odds of suicidal ideation, with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.66 and a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.55 to 0.78, also at p less than .001. Each unit increase in reported school belonging corresponded to roughly one-third lower odds of suicidal thoughts in the same models, making school belonging the only protective factor in the analysis that reached statistical significance.
Three measures of civic engagement did not show significant associations with suicidal ideation. Civic efficacy had an adjusted odds ratio of 0.96 with a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.87 to 1.06 and a p value of .389. Community involvement had an adjusted odds ratio of 0.83 with a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.53 to 1.32 and a p value of .473. Community leadership had an adjusted odds ratio of 1.29 with a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.79 to 2.09 and a p value of .448. Because each of these confidence intervals included the value of 1.0, the data did not support a significant link between any of these civic engagement measures and reduced odds of suicidal thoughts.
The moderation analyses also produced null results. None of the interactions between discrimination and the candidate protective factors were statistically significant, with all interaction p values exceeding .05. The authors had hypothesized that civic engagement and sense of belonging would buffer the association between discrimination and suicidal ideation, but the data did not support that expectation. The report notes that the moderation analyses may have been underpowered, meaning the sample size may have been too small to detect interaction effects of the magnitude that might exist in the population.
The distinction between independent and interactive effects is central to the report’s contribution. An independent association means a factor relates to the outcome on its own, while an interactive or moderating effect means one factor changes the strength of the association between another factor and the outcome. In this study, discrimination and school belonging each carried their own statistical relationship with suicidal thoughts, but school belonging did not weaken or strengthen the discrimination association. For prevention planning, this suggests that fostering school belonging may be worthwhile in its own right rather than as a buffer targeted specifically at adolescents experiencing discrimination.
The authors emphasize that the findings point to school-based strategies that foster belonging as a possible component of adolescent suicide prevention efforts in the United States. Because school belonging was linked to lower odds of suicidal ideation in the same models where discrimination was linked to higher odds, interventions that strengthen students’ sense of connection at school may address one modifiable factor, even though the study did not test any intervention directly. The cross-sectional design also means that the direction of the relationships cannot be established; adolescents experiencing suicidal thoughts may, for example, perceive their school environment differently.
Several limitations frame the results. The sample was limited to California adolescents aged 12 to 17 who participated in the 2021 survey, so generalization to other regions or years requires caution. The moderation analyses may have been underpowered, and the civic engagement measures showed no significant associations. Discrimination has previously been identified as a significant risk factor for suicidal ideation in adolescence, and few studies have examined protective factors that may interact with that association, which is the gap this report was designed to address.
The report was authored by Jocelyn Meza of the University of California Los Angeles Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Elena Maker Castro of Bates College’s Department of Psychology, Juliane L. Martinez of the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Grace M. Hindmarch of the UCLA Department of Health Policy and Management, and Sunhye Bai of the University of Oregon’s Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health. The article was received on 14 April 2026 and accepted on 14 October 2026, and it appears in the journal’s section on Adolescent Mental Health and Interventions. The authors state that all claims expressed in the article are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations or the publisher.
Subject of Research: Associations of racial or ethnic discrimination, school belonging and civic engagement with suicidal ideation among California adolescents
Article Title: Discrimination and school belonging independently but not interactively associated with suicidal thoughts among adolescents: a brief report
Article References: Meza, J., Maker Castro, E., Martinez, J. L., Hindmarch, G. M., & Bai, S. (2026). Discrimination and school belonging independently but not interactively associated with suicidal thoughts among adolescents: a brief report. Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 5, 1855058. https://doi.org/10.3389/frcha.2026.1855058
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.3389/frcha.2026.1855058
Keywords: adolescents, suicidal ideation, racial discrimination, school belonging, civic engagement, California Health Interview Survey, logistic regression, moderation analysis, adolescent mental health, suicide prevention, Discrimination, school
News Source: Glenn Wilkins. (October 30, 2026). Discrimination and school belonging tied to teen suicidal thoughts, but no combined effect. Scienmag.
