Understanding Mental Health Vulnerability Through Intersectionality: Racial Discrimination Among African Ethnic Minority Groups in Belgium

Objective: Racial discrimination in both overt and covert form remains a critical but underexamined determinant of mental health, especially among ethnic minority immigrant populations. The distinct impacts of microaggressions and harassment and their interplay with intersecting social identities, remain under-examined. This study investigates how microaggressions and harassment relate to mental health outcomes among sub-Saharan African minorities in Belgium, and whether gender, legal status, income, and language proficiency moderate these associations. Method: Data is analysed from the 2024–2025 ROAM-BE cross-sectional survey (N=923). Discrimination experiences were measured using multi-item scales for microaggressions and harassment. Mental health outcomes included general wellbeing, anxiety, sleep quality, and life satisfaction. Multivariate regression models tested the main effects of discrimination and two-way interactions with each moderator, adjusting for key covariates. Results: Both forms of discrimination were significantly associated with increased anxiety, reduced sleep quality, and lower life satisfaction, following a dose-response pattern. Interaction models revealed that moderate language proficiency intensified the negative impact of harassment on sleep and life satisfaction, while low or high proficiency showed weaker associations. Financial insecurity predicted poorer mental health across all models, though its moderating role was limited. Legal insecurity and female gender strengthened the effect of microaggressions on anxiety. In contrast, harassment had a stronger impact on sleep and life satisfaction among women, suggesting heightened vulnerability to overt threats. Conclusion: These findings emphasize that discrimination’s psychological impact cannot be fully understood in isolation but emerges from its entanglement with intersecting identities and structural inequalities.