Page 18 - RACE HEALER Mag Volume 1 final draft

A majority of studies exist in psychology and sociology jour- cost of stress to our health care system is clearly astrono-
nals with a virtual alphabet soup of titles and degrees among mical. I have suggested it might be mitigated to some extent
researchers, yet the word racism itself appears infrequently by providing for periods of rest and recovery. But even if we
on review of the past decade of research in Journal of the cannot realistically redesign our national take on work-life
American Medical Association (JAMA) or New England balance, a critical issue remains: does the disparity in al-
Journal of Medicine (NEJM) based on PubMed and Med- lostatic load account for some significant portion of what we
line and others. measurably quantify as health disparities based on race. If so,
simply attaching those differences to the inherent culture of a
Yet, mounting studies in other journals strongly support that racial group is a woefully inadequate approach to solving the
in- creased allostatic load is predictive of cardiovascular problem and tantamount to victim-blaming.
disease and all-cause mortality and correlated with poor
health practices including decreased rates of exercise and Once we acknowledge stress has a significantly different
social behavior such as smoking, alcohol, and rates of effect on us based on our self-perception as well as perceived
depression. Increasingly, studies show racial discrimination threats, we may be more apt to negotiate allostatic load
plays a critical role in explaining racial based health successfully. Acknowledging this mechanism as a source of
disparities. healing as well as the disease process gives us a powerful
tool for using our knowledge about internalized racism as a
At least one large mechanism for mitigating harm.
meta-analysis
provides the Health psychologists are now recognizing there are adap-
perspective that
ethnicity has a tive stress responses and that mild to moderate stress, is not
significant effect inherently bad. The most negative lasting impacts arise when
on health states our response to perceived threats are disproportionate, sus-
due to racism and tained and maladaptive. We, therefore, may be able to enlist
includes negative protective functions such as positive cultural identity. In one
mental health example, preliminary research suggests that a positive racial
effects on Asian identity is associated with decreased blood pressure.
American and
Latino American,
as well as African
Ameri- can participants. Not surprisingly, a strong
relationship has been made between allostatic load and
concomitant adverse pathophysiological processes in these
populations who also have diminished participation in
healthy behaviors known to contribute to resiliency, such as
sleep and exercise and decreased alcohol consumption,
known coping mechanisms for stress reduction.

V. Mitigating the Cost of

Allostatic Load and Health

Disparities

Research has shown that remaining in a state of constant
stress leads to a plethora of negative health effects. Interrupt-
ing the sources of stress would logically be more challenging
in the case of people who are subject to discrimination. The