Prejudice as Stress

描述(由申请人提供)： 偏见、歧视和疏远为美国社会中的许多少数群体创造了一个充满压力的社会环境。这种压力状况可能会导致不利的心理和身体健康结果。 这些描述“少数人压力”假说的说法似乎是无可争辩的：这一假说呼应了社会科学中的理论著作，反映了文学和个人描述中所描绘的外行经验。一些科学证据似乎支持这一观点，例如，非裔美国男性的高血压患病率高于白人男性。然而，当被置于科学的审视之下时，少数群体压力假说并不容易得到证实。科学证据并没有明确支持一个看似简单的想法，即少数群体成员遭受偏见和歧视的健康后果。该地区的科学研究和学术工作引发了重大问题。我们对这些问题的回答对社会具有严重的公共政策、公共卫生和伦理影响。这些复杂的问题是拟议中的书的主题。我试图对偏见和健康之间的关系的研究和流行著作进行全面的批判性审查。在这本书中，我将使用广泛的视角分析少数群体压力假说和相关发现，以解决科学和医学问题及其社会和伦理影响。这本书将在两个方面具有重要意义：它将对理论和研究结果进行必要的全面综合审查；它将开始一场关于美国社会如何为构成它的不同群体解决健康和生活质量问题的讨论。这些问题与2010年《健康人》的首要目标之一有关，因为它们解决了美国健康差距的原因。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Prejudice, discrimination and alienation create a stressful social environment for many minority groups in American society. Such stressful conditions can lead to adverse mental and physical health outcomes. These statements, describing a "minority stress" hypothesis, seem incontrovertible: The hypothesis echoes theoretical writings in the social sciences and reflects lay experiences as portrayed in literary and personal accounts. Some scientific evidence seems to support it, for example, that African American men have higher rates of hypertension than their white counterparts. However, when placed under scientific scrutiny, the minority stress hypothesis is not easily confirmed. Scientific evidence has not clearly supported what seems like a simple idea, that minority group members suffer health consequences of prejudice and discrimination. Scientific research and scholarly work in the area raise significant questions. The answers we give to these questions have serious public policy, public health, and ethical implications for society. These complex issues are the topic of the proposed book. I seek to conduct a comprehensive critical review of research and popular works on the relationship between prejudice and health. In the book I will analyze the minority stress hypothesis and relevant findings using a broad perspective that addresses scientific and medical issues and their social and ethical implications. The book will be significant in two ways: It will provide a needed comprehensive integrated review of theory and research findings; and it will begin a discussion on how American society can address issues of health and quality of life for the diverse groups that compose it. These issues are related to one of the overarching goals of Healthy People 2010, in that they address causes for health disparities in the United States.