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Self-Rated Health, Discrimination, and Racial Group Identity: the Consequences of Ethnicity and Nativity Among Black Americans

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Abstract

In this study, we examine how ethnic heterogeneity and nativity shape the relationships among self-rated health, discrimination, and racial group identity for a representative sample of African Americans, U.S.-born Caribbean Blacks, and foreign-born Caribbean Blacks (National Survey of American Life; N = 4091). Our study includes two forms of discrimination, major lifetime discrimination and day-to-day discrimination, as well as two forms of racial group identity, closeness to other Blacks and Black group evaluation. Closeness to other Blacks improves the self-rated health of U.S.-born Caribbean Blacks who reported experiencing high levels of major discrimination. Black group evaluation improved the health of foreign-born Caribbean Blacks, who reported low levels of major discrimination, and African Americans, with high levels of major discrimination. Finally, for both foreign-born Caribbean Blacks and African Americans, who experience high discrimination, Black group evaluation weakens the influence of day-to-day discrimination on self-rated health.

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Funding

This research was, in part, supported by grant #64300-1-4 to the first author from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Center at Meharry Medical College.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, VU Station B, Box 351811, Nashville, TN, 37325-1811, USA

    C. André Christie-Mizell & Brittany N. Hearne

  2. Department of Health Policy, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 2525 West End Avenue, Suite 1201-D, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA

    Erika T. A. Leslie

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  1. C. André Christie-Mizell
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  2. Erika T. A. Leslie
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Correspondence to C. André Christie-Mizell.

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Christie-Mizell, C.A., Leslie, E.T.A. & Hearne, B.N. Self-Rated Health, Discrimination, and Racial Group Identity: the Consequences of Ethnicity and Nativity Among Black Americans. J Afr Am St 21, 643–664 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-017-9388-y

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