Journal of health and social behavior
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This article provides an overview of research on race-related stressors that can affect the mental health of socially disadvantaged racial and ethnic populations. It begins by reviewing the research on self-reported discrimination and mental health. Although discrimination is the most studied aspect of racism, racism can also affect mental health through structural/institutional mechanisms and racism that is deeply embedded in the larger culture. Key priorities for research include more systematic attention to stress proliferation processes due to institutional racism, the assessment of stressful experiences linked to natural or manmade environmental crises, documenting and understanding the health effects of hostility against immigrants and people of color, cataloguing and quantifying protective resources, and enhancing our understanding of the complex association between physical and mental health.
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I use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (n = 4,971) to evaluate the extent to which socioeconomic status affects three health-related (living will, durable power of attorney for health care, and discussions) and one financial (will) component of end-of-life planning. Net worth is positively associated with all four types of planning, after demographic, health, and psychological characteristics are controlled. ⋯ The results suggest that economically advantaged persons engage in end-of-life planning as a two-pronged strategy entailing financial and health-related preparations. Implications for health policy, practice, and theory are discussed.
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Comparative Study
Gender differences in immigrant health: the case of Mexican and Middle Eastern immigrants.
This article draws on theories of gender inequality and immigrant health to hypothesize differences among the largest immigrant population, Mexicans, and a lesser known population of Middle Easterners. Using data from the 2000-2007 National Health Interview Surveys, we compare health outcomes among immigrants to those among U. S.-born whites and assess gender differences within each group. ⋯ Immigrants are less likely than U. S.-born whites to interact with the health care system, and women are more likely to do so than men. Thus, immigrant and gender health disparities may partly reflect knowledge of health status rather than actual health.
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How are individuals affected when the communities they live in change for the worse? This question is central to understanding neighborhood effects, but few study designs generate estimates that can be interpreted causally. We address issues of inference through a natural experiment, examining post-traumatic stress at multiple time points in a population differentially exposed to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. ⋯ Using multilevel linear mixed models, we show that community destruction worsens post-traumatic stress, net of rigorous controls for individual experiences of trauma and loss. Furthermore, the effect of community destruction persists over time and extends across a wide range of community types.
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Review
Medical sociology and health services research: past accomplishments and future policy challenges.
The rising costs and inconsistent quality of health care in the United States have raised significant questions among professionals, policy makers, and the public about the way health services are being delivered. For the past 50 years, medical sociologists have made significant contributions in improving our understanding of the nature and impact of the organizations that constitute our health care system. ⋯ S. are unequally distributed, contributing to health inequalities across status groups; (2) social institutions reproduce health care inequalities by constraining and enabling the actions of health service organizations, health care providers, and consumers; and (3) the structure and dynamics of health care organizations shape the quality, effectiveness, and outcomes of health services for different groups and communities. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings for future health care reform efforts.