Social-Class
Discrimination Contributes to Poorer Health
Madison,
Wisconsin - Discrimination felt by teenagers based on their social class
background can contribute to physiologic changes associated with poorer health,
according to a new study led by a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher.
Lead author
Dr. Thomas Fuller-Rowell, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society
Scholar, says that while the link between poverty and poor health has long been
known, this is one of the first studies to consider the impact of class
discrimination.
"The
findings of our study suggest that the stress caused by social-class
discrimination may be an important factor in explaining the negative influence
of poverty on health," says Fuller-Rowell.
The study
looked at 17-year-olds from upstate New York enrolled in a long-running Cornell
University study of rural poverty. The vast majority of the 252 teens were
white, so the study did not look at the effect of race.
"Experiences
of discrimination are often subtle rather than blatant, and the exact reason
for unfair treatment is often not clear to the victim," says
Fuller-Rowell. For these reasons, rather than asking the study participants if
they had experienced discrimination specifically based on their class
background, the study measured general perceptions of discrimination. For
example, they were asked: "How often do people treat you differently
because of your background?"
read more:
see also: