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Ethnicity- and socio-economic status-related stresses in context: an integrative review and conceptual model

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Abstract

There continues to be debate about how best to conceptualize and measure the role of exposure to ethnicity-related and socio-economic status-related stressors (e.g. racism, discrimination, class prejudice) in accounting for ethnic health disparities over the lifecourse and across generations. In this review, we provide a brief summary of the evidence of health disparities among ethnic groups, and the major evidence on the role of exposure to ethnicity- and SES-related stressors on health. We then offer a reciprocal and recursive lifespan meta-model that considers the interaction of ethnicity and SES history as impacting exposure to psychosocial adversities, including ethnicity-related stresses, and mediating biopsychosocial mechanisms that interact to result in hypothesized cumulative biopsychosocial vulnerabilities. Ultimately, group differences in the burden of cumulative vulnerabilities are hypothesized as contributing to differential health status over time. Suggestions are offered for future research on the unique role that ethnicity- and SES-related processes are likely to play as contributors to persistent ethnic health disparities.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grants No. MH64404 and P50MH073453.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of California at Los Angeles, 1285 Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1563, USA

    Hector F. Myers

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Correspondence to Hector F. Myers.

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Earlier drafts of this review were presented at the Symposium on new research on health disparities at the American Psychosomatic Society, March 15, 2008 and at the Pittsburgh Mind-Body Center Summer Institute, June 5, 2008.

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Myers, H.F. Ethnicity- and socio-economic status-related stresses in context: an integrative review and conceptual model. J Behav Med 32, 9–19 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-008-9181-4

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