Journal of Health and Social Behavior
Volume 59, Issue 4, 2018, Pages 466-485

Stress and the Mental Health of Populations of Color: Advancing Our Understanding of Race-related Stressors (Review)

Williams D.R.*
  • a Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H, Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States, Department of African and African American Studies and of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

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. © American Sociological Association 2018.

Author Keywords

Mental disorders Stress Mental health Racial discrimination race Racism

Index Keywords

Minority Groups Stress, Psychological mental stress Delivery of Health Care ethnology African American racism Mental Disorders health care delivery African Americans minority group mental health human Humans psychology mental disease

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85057285413&doi=10.1177%2f0022146518814251&partnerID=40&md5=c25dc13f664a17ba9c93e996f07e1ab0

DOI: 10.1177/0022146518814251
ISSN: 00221465
Cited by: 7
Original Language: English