What is it about?
Hair cortisol is a now established measure of chronic stress. This study found the first association between chronic social discrimination and hair cortisol in a diverse sample.
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Why is it important?
Health disparities in the U.S. are widening. Using physiological markers, we can further understand the health toll of overt discrimination and subtle social stressors that minorities, foreign-born adults, women, and others who bear the burden of entrenched social stressors.
Perspectives
It is well-known that overt discrimination is deleterious to physical and mental health. Less studied are the subtle and perhaps cumulative social stressors, such as microaggressions, on how the major stress systems respond and the implications on health.
Kymberlee O'Brien
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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This page is a summary of: Hair cortisol and lifetime discrimination: Moderation by subjective social status, Health Psychology Open, January 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/2055102917695176.
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