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. 2011 Apr 15;8(1):143-157.
doi: 10.1017/S1742058X11000178.

Multiple Pathways Linking Racism to Health Outcomes

Camara Jules P Harrell  1 , Tanisha I Burford, Brandi N Cage, Travette McNair Nelson, Sheronda Shearon, Adrian Thompson, Steven Green
Affiliations

Multiple Pathways Linking Racism to Health Outcomes

Camara Jules P Harrell et al. Du Bois Rev. .

Abstract

This commentary discusses advances in the conceptual understanding of racism and selected research findings in the social neurosciences. The traditional stress and coping model holds that racism constitutes a source of aversive experiences that, when perceived by the individual, eventually lead to poor health outcomes. Current evidence points to additional psychophysiological pathways linking facets of racist environments with physiological reactions that contribute to disease. The alternative pathways emphasize prenatal experiences, subcortical emotional neural circuits, conscious and preconscious emotion regulation, perseverative cognitions, and negative affective states stemming from racist cognitive schemata. Recognition of these pathways challenges change agents to use an array of cognitive and self-controlling interventions in mitigating racism's impact. Additionally, it charges policy makers to develop strategies that eliminate deep-seated structural aspects of racism in society.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Proposed models, psychological processes, and physiological pathways that link four forms of racism to health-related physiological changes
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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