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Predictors of Health-Related Quality of Life Among African American Men

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Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

African American men have the lowest life expectancy of any ethnic gender group in the USA. Furthermore, these men endorse having a lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL) than any other group. There have been recent calls from national organizations to improve HRQoL—a multidimensional indicator of health strongly associated with mortality and morbidity. Following these calls, there have been widespread efforts implemented to improve HRQoL among the US population, though no known effort has been implemented that is tailored to the unique experiences of African American men. Health promotion efforts that are not tailored to the unique preferences and experiences of these men are likely to produce limited results. Formative research conducted among African American men is needed in order to design and implement an effective HRQoL-promoting intervention for African American men. The present study constitutes such formative research and was conducted with a sample of 211 African American men. Hierarchical regressions were performed to understand the role of literature-derived predictors of HRQoL among these men. Results found that depression, stress, and physical activity were found to be significant predictors of HRQoL among these men. This is the first known study to examine predictors of HRQoL among African American men—a group that disproportionately experiences health disparities and low HRQoL, though for who few successful health promotions exist. The findings from this study have implications for those seeking to design and implement HRQoL-promoting interventions among African American men.

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Data Availability

Data collected from this study are available upon request to the corresponding author.

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Funding

Funding for the present study was provided by the University of South Carolina. Dr. Wippold was also funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under award number K23MD016123.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, 1512 Pendleton Avenue, Barnwell College, Mailbox 38, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    Guillermo M. Wippold & Sarah Grace Frary

Authors
  1. Guillermo M. Wippold
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  2. Sarah Grace Frary
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Wippold

Methodology: Wippold

Formal analysis and investigation: Wippold and Frary

Writing – original draft preparation: Wippold and Frary

Writing – review and editing: Wippold and Frary

Revisions – Wippold and Frary

Funding acquisition: Wippold

Resources: Wippold.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guillermo M. Wippold.

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Ethics Approval

Approval was obtained from the ethics committee at the University of South Carolina (No. 00104987). The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Not applicable.

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Wippold, G.M., Frary, S.G. Predictors of Health-Related Quality of Life Among African American Men. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 9, 2131–2138 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-021-01151-z

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