Generalized anxiety, bullying and racial discrimination in Finnish schools: an association analysis

Background

Youth with a foreign family background cope more often with racial discrimination and bullying at interpersonal and structural levels. Racism is considered a core determinant of health, impacting through multiple levels and reinforcing disparities through its effects on health and educational outcomes. Despite the evidence demonstrating adversities suffered by youth with a foreign background, understanding on this issue remains limited. This study addresses the gap by examining generalized anxiety symptoms of Finnish adolescents at multiple levels simultaneously.

Methods

We used nationwide data from the School Health Promotion study years 2017 to 2025, representative of 14-16 year old adolescents in Finland. We examined moderate generalized anxiety symptoms (GAD-7), bullying and racial discrimination across students with diverse family background (N = 432,440). A cross-classified mixed-effects model was fit following the Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) approach. Results are presented as Average Marginal Effects (AME).

Results

Prevalence of racial discrimination in adolescents was 2.1% among Finnish background adolescents, 9.5% among adolescents with Finnish- and foreign-background parents, 15.8% among those with foreign background, and 18.3% among adolescents foreign-born and with foreign background. Weekly bullying was also more common among adolescents with foreign background (13.2%) than for Finnish background adolescents (5.4%). Adolescents reporting weekly bullying showed systematically higher prevalence of generalized anxiety symptoms (AME=.43 for peer-inflicted bullying; AME=.35 for adult-inflicted bullying).

Conclusions

Adolescents with non-majority social identities showed enhanced vulnerability to generalized anxiety symptoms. Supporting adolescents’ mental health requires adopting a comprehensive approach including individual, interpersonal and structural levels.

Key messages

• Higher prevalence of generalized anxiety symptoms among adolescents with foreign family background are linked to their more frequent experiences of bullying and racial discrimination.

• Foreign-background youth are more vulnerable in terms of interpersonal, such as bullying and discrimination, and intrapersonal (i.e. mental health) outcomes.