Studies find that racial prejudice at the local level is causing health inequality-ScienceDaily

Researchers conducted a systematic review of 14 papers using data collected from Google, Twitter, and other big data sources to find out how stigma and health are intertwined in communities across the United States. rice field.

“Racism is being recognized as a fundamental driver of health inequality,” said MPH, Principal Research Author Eli Michaels, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. “Using big data to capture regional racial prejudices is one of the innovative approaches to measuring the overall racial climate in which people live, work, play and pray. The studies included in the review revealed that they live in areas with high levels of racial prejudice, which can be detrimental to health and increase racial health inequality. “

The study was published in the journal Health psychology..

The review survey used a variety of sources to measure community-level racial prejudice and included tens of millions of data points from large-scale surveys, Internet searches, and social media. Three studies analyzed Google Trends data on how often users’ searches include racial slurs. Four studies analyzed Twitter’s data on tweets containing negative sentiment towards people of color. Three studies used data from the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of US social and political attitudes. The four studies also used data from Project Implicit, an online tool that assesses people’s implicit bias towards different groups. All data is coded by geographic area.

In the study, these various indicators of racial prejudice at the community level include mortality, adverse maternal and infant birth outcomes, cardiovascular outcomes, mental health, and overall self-assessment health. We investigated how it correlates with the health outcomes of individuals living in the community. All studies have found a link between the level of racial prejudice in the community and the adverse health effects of the colored races that lived there. Four studies also showed similar associations among Caucasian residents (two studies showed less impact on Caucasians but still harmful compared to colored races. rice field).

“Most of the research on racial discrimination and health to date has focused on personal experience,” said Amani M., a professor of community health science and epidemiology at the Berkeley School of Public Health, University of California. Dr. Allen said. Senior author of the study.

“The new set of work considered in this review is an important step beyond the individual level to understand the context of places and how they affect the health of the people who live in those places. That’s what Allen said. “As you can see from this review, living in an environment with an overall climate that is prejudiced against colored people is bad for everyone, not just for racially marginalized groups. Level racial prejudice is a social determinant of population health. “

According to researchers, there are various theories about how racial prejudice in the community can be harmful to health. First, at the individual level, living in a more biased community can increase the number of biased interactions a person experiences and can cause harmful stress. At the community level, more racial prejudices can erode social capital-defined as the “norms of reciprocity, trust and social obligations” in the community-to buffer stressful life events. Less social and emotional support, less political support for policies, and programs that can improve the health and welfare of all community members.

Further research is needed to elucidate these various factors that can link community-level racial prejudice to the health of the entire community, especially colored races, according to researchers.

“Because racism is multidimensional, we need a multidimensional solution to dismantle racism and the health effects of racism,” Michaels said. “Studies that identify the root cause of our collective prejudice and test interventions to shift are urgent priorities.”

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