What is it about?
Racial microaggressions do not have to register as offensive nor state their message directly to communicate something about race and health. They can work through unstated assumptions or ideas that people are left to supply for themselves. When those assumptions reflect longstanding beliefs that locate poor health within Black bodies rather than within the social conditions that produce unequal health, they can quietly reinforce the idea that poor health is natural, inherited, or inevitable. This study examines how that process may matter for health behavior. I found that experiences of racial microaggressions from health professionals were associated with lower self-efficacy and with how people weighed the benefits and costs of changing their behavior. In other words, racism may influence health not only through exposure to stress or discrimination, but by shaping whether efforts to improve one's health come to feel worthwhile, achievable, or viable in the first place.
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Why is it important?
Ideas about Blackness and health are historically rooted in White supremacy and are not always stated directly. Beliefs about whose bodies are healthy, whose bodies are inherently at risk, and where responsibility for poor health belongs operate covertly through assumptions that have become so familiar that they no longer need to be said aloud. This study helps explain one way those ideas may become consequential for health behavior. When racialized messages repeatedly locate the problem within Black bodies while obscuring the social conditions that produce health inequities, efforts to improve health may begin to appear less effective or less possible. Understanding that process changes the question from “Why doesn't this person make healthier choices?” to “What has shaped the possibilities they see available to them?”
Perspectives
There is nothing inevitable about racial health inequality. Yet we often talk about Black health as though there is. We remain steeped in ideas about inheritance, biology, and individual risk that can make unequal health outcomes seem almost expected. In doing so, we can lose sight of the social conditions that shape what health is actually possible for individuals. My work seeks to disrupt that inevitability. I am interested in documenting how those processes shape people's confidence, choices, and possibilities for change. I teach my students to speak about these processes explicitly because the stories we tell about race and health matter. Changing how we understand and talk about health is part of changing the political conditions in which minds, hearts, and bodies can change.
Dr. Amanda Lee Almond
New York City College of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: What race means for health among Black Americans: How microaggressions shape self-efficacy and readiness for behavior change., Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, September 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/cdp0000826.
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