![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
Abstract
Objective: Daily events of discrimination are important factors in understanding health disparities. Vigilant coping, or protecting against anticipated discrimination by monitoring and modifying behaviour, is an understudied mechanism that may link discrimination and health outcomes. This study investigates how responding to everyday discrimination with anticipatory vigilance relates to the health of Black men and women.
Methods: Black adults (N = 221) from the Detroit area completed measures of discrimination, adverse life events, vigilance coping, stress, depressive symptoms and self-reported health.
Results: Vigilance coping strategies mediated the relationship between discrimination and stress. Multi-group path analysis revealed that stress in turn was associated with increased depression in men and women. Self-reported health consequences of stress differed between men and women.
Conclusions: Vigilance coping mediates the link between discrimination and stress, and stress has consequences for health outcomes resulting from discrimination. More research is needed to understand other underlying contributors to discrimination, stress and poor health outcomes as well as to create potential interventions to ameliorate health outcomes in the face of discrimination-related stress.