Spring 2018 Clara Mayo Award Winner

Psychophysiological Reactivity to Vicarious Discrimination


Effua SoSoo

Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Tamir Rice. These represent just some of the Black men, women, and children shot by police officers. While previous research has examined individual experiences of discrimination, few studies have examined the impact of vicarious discrimination, or instances of discrimination observed but not directly experienced. However, some work suggests that vicarious discrimination may be more common than direct discrimination (Tynes et al., 2008), necessitating a more extensive examination of this phenomenon. In fact, a quasi-experimental study examining the spillover effects of police shootings on the health of Americans found adverse mental health impacts for Black, but not White respondents, underscoring the importance of examining race-related stress among Black individuals (Bor, Venkataramani, Williams, & Tsai, 2018). My current work explores the physical and mental impacts of vicariously witnessing the assault and shooting of Black individuals, and how this stressor may contribute to racial disparities in health.

The reduction of racial health disparities is one of the goals of the Healthy People 2020 initiative, a National Institutes of Health program intended to improve public health in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011). These disparities begin before birth (Lu & Halfon, 2003) and persist throughout older adulthood (Pappas, Queen, Hadden, & Fisher, 1993). Though Black individuals present with higher risk profiles that include poor access to health care and higher amounts of stress, these factors alone do not explain disparities (Crimmins et al., 2007). Interestingly, variables that are commonly assumed to account for variance in racial differences (e.g., socioeconomic status) do not explain disparities in health either (Geronimus, 2006). Researchers suggest that differential exposure to discrimination may largely account for these disparities (Assari, 2018). The allostatic load model (McEwen, 1998) is a useful framework for conceptualizing how vicarious discrimination may exact a toll on health: this model asserts that repeated exposure to stress (e.g., vicarious discrimination) can lead to the wear and tear of the body’s systems, ultimately leading to disease and death.

Thus, my study has two aims. First, it seeks to examine how witnessing instances of discrimination influences stress responses. Lower heart rate variability (HRV), a biomarker of parasympathetic nervous system activity, has been associated with risk for cardiovascular disease (Thayer, Yamamoto, & Brosschot, 2010). By measuring HRV responses to vicarious discrimination, we can better understand how viewing images depicting the assault and shooting of Black individuals may influence health. Second, my study seeks to examine which factors protect individuals from, or render them more vulnerable to, stress responses. Margot Arce de Vázquez, an essayist and educator, said, “A university professor can not lock himself in his ivory tower or ignore the problems of his time, his country, and those of the whole world” (1961). Given the pernicious effects of racial discrimination and current discourse on police shootings and disparities in health, it is incumbent on researchers to elucidate the impacts of discrimination. I aspire to contribute to this noble effort with my study.

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References

Assari, S. (2018). Health disparities due to diminished return among black Americans: public policy solutions. Soc Issues Policy Rev.

Banks, K. H., & Kohn-Wood, L. P. (2007). The influence of racial identity profiles on the relationship between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms. Journal of Black Psychology, 33(3), 331–354.

Bor, J., Venkataramani, A. S., Williams, D. R., & Tsai, A. C. (2018). Police killings and their spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans: a population-based, quasi-experimental study. The Lancet.

Caprio, S., Daniels, S. R., Drewnowski, A., Kaufman, F. R., Palinkas, L. A., Rosenbloom, A. L., … Kirkman, M. S. (2008). Influence of race, ethnicity, and culture on childhood obesity: implications for prevention and treatment. Obesity, 16(12), 2566–2577.

Lu, M. C., & Halfon, N. (2003). Racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes: a life-course perspective. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 7(1), 13–30.

McClellan, W., Warnock, D. G., McClure, L., Campbell, R. C., Newsome, B. B., Howard, V., … Howard, G. (2006). Racial differences in the prevalence of chronic kidney disease among participants in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) Cohort Study. Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 17(6), 1710–1715.

McCoy, S. K., & Major, B. (2003). Group identification moderates emotional responses to perceived prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(8), 1005–1017.

McEwen, B. S. (1998). Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostasis and allostatic load. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 840(1), 33–44.

Pappas, G., Queen, S., Hadden, W., & Fisher, G. (1993). The increasing disparity in mortality between socioeconomic groups in the United States, 1960 and 1986. New England Journal of Medicine, 329(2), 103–109.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (2011). Healthy People 2020. Washington, DC.

Thayer, J. F., Yamamoto, S. S., & Brosschot, J. F. (2010). The relationship of autonomic imbalance, heart rate variability and cardiovascular disease risk factors. International Journal of Cardiology, 141(2), 122–131.