{"doi":"10.3389/fpubh.2022.1028344","title":"College students' underlying perceptions of COVID-19 threat, healthcare discrimination, and healthcare system inequities associated with self-rated health across racial/ethnic groups in the U.S.","abstract":"Background: COVID-19-related health perceptions may differentially impact college students' stress, and in turn, their mental and physical health. This study examined racial/ethnic differences in college students' underlying perceptions of COVID-19 threat, healthcare discrimination, and U.S. healthcare system inequities and their associations with self-rated mental and physical health. Methods: Four-hundred-thirty-two university students completed an online survey (December 2020-December 2021). Latent class analyses identified classes of perceived COVID-19 threat (i.e., severity, susceptibility), healthcare discrimination, and U.S. healthcare system inequities. Regression analyses examined whether class membership varied by race/ethnicity and was associated with self-rated mental and physical health. Results: Class 1 members (27.3% of the sample) were more likely to identify as Hispanic or Latino, Non-Hispanic Asian, Non-Hispanic Black or African American, and Non-Hispanic Multiracial vs. Non-Hispanic White (vs. Class 4). Class 1 had high perceived COVID-19 threat, medium perceived healthcare discrimination, and high perceived U.S. healthcare system inequities, as well as higher odds of poorer mental and physical health (vs. Class 4). Conclusions: College students' underlying perceptions of COVID-19 threat, healthcare discrimination, and U.S. healthcare system inequities were associated with poorer health. Given that students with these perceptions were more likely to belong to minoritized racial/ethnic groups, concerns over COVID-19 risk and healthcare may partially explain racial/ethnic disparities in college students' health. This study contributes to a limited body of evidence on college students' perceptions of the U.S. healthcare system and suggests important ways that structural inequalities and racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 risk, healthcare discrimination, and concerns over U.S. healthcare system inequity may affect college students' health.","journal":"Frontiers in Public Health","year":2023,"id":360017,"datarank":0.3453877639491069,"base_score":2.302585092994046,"endowment":2.302585092994046,"self_citation_contribution":0.3453877639491069,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.3453877639491069,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9499,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":962225,"name":"Juliana S. Sherchan","orcid":"0009-0000-2989-2178","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1111467,"name":"Yong Ju Cho","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1111468,"name":"Judy Nanaw","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":348816,"name":"Nataria T. Joseph","orcid":"0000-0001-8412-5828","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":251224,"name":"Allana T. Forde","orcid":"0000-0002-3097-0038","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":770266,"name":"Jessica R. Fernandez","orcid":"0000-0001-5638-7193","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":49,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:57.361401Z","pmid":"36684993","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}