Everyday unfair treatment and multisystem biological dysregulation in African American adults

Abstract

Objective: Increasing evidence suggests that chronic exposure to unfair treatment or day-to-day discrimination increases risk for poor health, but data on biological stress mechanisms are limited. This study examined chronic experiences of unfair treatment in relation to allostatic load (AL), a multisystem index of biological dysregulation.

Method: Data are from a sample of 233 African-American adults (37-85 years; 64% women). Perceptions of everyday unfair treatment were measured by questionnaire. An AL index was computed as the sum of 7 separate physiological system risk indices (cardiovascular regulation, lipid, glucose, inflammation, sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system, hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis).

Results: Adjusting for sociodemographics, medication use, smoking status, alcohol consumption, depressive symptoms, lifetime discrimination, and global perceived stress, everyday mistreatment was associated with higher AL.

Conclusions: The results add to a growing literature on the effects of chronic bias and discrimination by demonstrating how such experiences are instantiated in downstream physiological systems. (PsycINFO Database Record

Figure 1

Bar graph shows mean levels of allostatic load in low, intermediate, and high unfair treatment tertiles. Base model (solid bars) adjusted for age, gender, and education. Final model (hatched bars) represent additional adjustment for medication use, smoking status, alcohol problems, depression scores, lifetime unfair treatment, and global perceived stress. Error bars are standard error of the mean. See the online article for the color version of this figure.