Final answer:
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of individuals based on various characteristics and results in significant adverse health outcomes. It is a persistent stressor that can lead to mental and physical health issues. Efforts to combat discrimination include laws and international conventions, but systemic challenges remain.
Step-by-step explanation:
Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, sex, or disability. It is associated with numerous negative health outcomes, including mental health issues like depression and physical conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. This relationship is due in part to the role of discrimination as a chronic stressor. When individuals face repeated discriminatory events, they undergo the general adaptation syndrome's stages of alarm, resistance, and potentially exhaustion, impacting their overall health.
Instances of discrimination can manifest in various social environments, like the labor market, where hiring disparities by race, ethnicity, gender, and disability status are evident. Studies have shown that names associated with African American identity received 50% fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names. Discrimination in the hiring process often reflects systemic biases and prejudicial attitudes, contributing to persistent inequality.
By answering the question 'What is discrimination?' and recognizing it as biased actions against an individual or group, we can better understand the mechanisms through which it affects individuals and society. Although formal laws and UN conventions aim to combat discrimination, challenges continue in dismantling embedded systemic inequalities.