BPD Prevalence Across Ethnicities

G. Pacana

3/17/20241 min read

BPD Prevalance
BPD Prevalance

While the overall prevalence of borderline personality disorder in the United States has been estimated to range from as low as 1.6% of the population to as high as 5.9%, not much information is available regarding the prevalence rates among specific ethnic groups.

However, there have been several studies that have attempted to determine the prevalence of BPD among various ethnicities.


A 2010 study set out to discover if prevalence rates for BPD differed among various ethnicities. The results were somewhat surprising and contradicted the conventional belief that BPD was predominantly a disorder affecting White Americans.

Native Americans were found to have the highest reported prevalence of BPD at 12.8%, followed by African Americans at 8%, and then White and Hispanic Americans at 6% each. In addition, BPD prevalence was found to be the lowest among Asian Americans at 4.1%.

While the reasons are not completely understood, it has been suggested that a complex interplay of socioeconomic factors, historical and cultural trauma, differences in symptom expression, and systemic issues in healthcare access contribute to the higher prevalence rates of BPD among Native Americans and African Americans.

Sources:bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com,ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, samhsa.gov, mcleanhospital.org