Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

MULTIPLE PATHWAYS LINKING RACISM TO HEALTH OUTCOMES

2011; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s1742058x11000178

1742-0598

Camara Jules P. Harrell, Tanisha I. Burford, Brandi Nicole Cage, Travette McNair Nelson, Sheronda Shearon, Adrian Thompson, Steve Green,

Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development

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.