Race and Unhealthy Behaviors: Chronic Stress, the HPA Axis, and Physical and Mental Health Disparities Over the Life Course

By J. Jackson, Katherine M. Knight, J. Rafferty. American Journal of Public Health, 2009

783 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Objectives We sought to determine whether unhealthy behaviors play a stress-buffering role in observed racial disparities in physical and mental health. Methods We conducted logistic regressions by race on data from the first 2 waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives Survey to determine whether unhealthy behaviors had buffering effects on the relationship between major stressors and chronic health conditions, and on the relationship between major stressors and meeting the criteria for major depression. Results Among Whites, unhealthy behaviors strengthened the relationship between stressors and meeting major-depression criteria. Among Blacks, however, the relationship between stressors and meeting major-depression criteria was stronger among those who had not engaged in unhealthy behaviors than among those who had. Among both race groups there was a positive association between stressors and chronic health conditions. Among Blacks there was an additional positive association between number of unhealthy behaviors and number of chronic conditions. Conclusions Those who live in chronically stressful environments often cope with stressors by engaging in unhealthy behaviors that may have protective mental-health effects. However, such unhealthy behaviors can combine with negative environmental conditions to eventually contribute to morbidity and mortality disparities among social groups.

Subfields: Health, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/12306bdf1b791b7c281b6dec8fd4c5e96d4de488

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Citations in the corpus

Can social relationships explain the race paradox in mental health (2013, result): “An analysis of data from the Americans’ Changing Lives study yielded similar results, supporting the theory of self-regulation (Jackson, Knight, & Rafferty, 2010).”
Social stigma and its consequences for the socially stigmatized. (2011, background): “Jackson, Knight, and Rafferty (2010) have demonstrated that Blacks may engage in passive ⁄ avoidant coping strategies, such as smoking, drinking, and unhealthy eating, which buffer the negative effects of stigma-related stress on mental health, but increase physical health problems.”
Stress and the Mental Health of Populations of Color:Advancing Our Understanding of Race-related Stressors (2018, background): “A novel hypothesis to account for this paradox was that engagement in unhealthy behaviors (eating, alcohol and tobacco use) to cope with stress is more protective of depression risk for blacks than whites (Jackson, Knight, and Rafferty 2010).”
Identity‐Based Motivation: Implications for Health and Health Disparities (2014, background): “By increasing sense of control, reducing health fatalism, and increasing identity-congruence of healthy behaviors, these policies would alleviate some of the chronic stressors that can contribute to negative health outcomes (see Jackson et al, 2010).”