TY - JOUR
T1 - Moderators of the effects of perceived racism and discrimination on cancer-related health behaviors among two samples of African Americans
AU - Manning, Mark
AU - Lucas, Todd
AU - Purrington, Kristen
AU - Thompson, Hayley
AU - Albrecht, Terrance L.
AU - Penner, Louis
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by NIH grant R03CA216011 and by a Karmanos Cancer Institute Strategic Research Initiative Grant . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2023/1
Y1 - 2023/1
N2 - Background: Assumptions regarding within-race variation in the associations between measures of discrimination racism and health-related behaviors among African Americans have been largely unexplored. Methods: We conducted secondary analyses of two studies to examine support for a model which describes several theoretical moderators of the effects of discrimination and racism on health behaviors. The first study examined the effects of group-based behavioral information and racial identity on the association between perceived racism and requests for at home colorectal cancer screening tests among a sample of 205 geographically diverse African Americans who participated in an online experiment from 2019 to 2020. Results: Group-based behavioral information attenuated the association between perceived racism and requests for at-home screening kit. In the absence of group-based behavioral information, perceived racism was positively associated with screening kit requests for African Americans with weaker racial identity and negatively associated with requests for African Americans with stronger racial identity. The second study examined the influence of personal and group-based perceived discrimination, and behavior-relevant affective information related to a breast cancer risk notification, on 89 Michigan dwelling African American women's self-reported physician communication from 2015 to 2016. Results showed that perceived group-based discrimination was positively associated with physician communication in the absence of negative affective information, and perceived personal discrimination was negatively associated with physician communication as positive affective information increased. Conclusions: Together, these results support our theoretical model highlighting variation in the effects of discrimination and racism on health behaviors among African Americans, and indicates group-relevant behavioral information, racial identity, behavior relevant affective information, and target of discrimination as moderators of the effect. Implications for conceptualizing the effects of racism and discrimination and for examining racially targeted interventions are discussed.
AB - Background: Assumptions regarding within-race variation in the associations between measures of discrimination racism and health-related behaviors among African Americans have been largely unexplored. Methods: We conducted secondary analyses of two studies to examine support for a model which describes several theoretical moderators of the effects of discrimination and racism on health behaviors. The first study examined the effects of group-based behavioral information and racial identity on the association between perceived racism and requests for at home colorectal cancer screening tests among a sample of 205 geographically diverse African Americans who participated in an online experiment from 2019 to 2020. Results: Group-based behavioral information attenuated the association between perceived racism and requests for at-home screening kit. In the absence of group-based behavioral information, perceived racism was positively associated with screening kit requests for African Americans with weaker racial identity and negatively associated with requests for African Americans with stronger racial identity. The second study examined the influence of personal and group-based perceived discrimination, and behavior-relevant affective information related to a breast cancer risk notification, on 89 Michigan dwelling African American women's self-reported physician communication from 2015 to 2016. Results showed that perceived group-based discrimination was positively associated with physician communication in the absence of negative affective information, and perceived personal discrimination was negatively associated with physician communication as positive affective information increased. Conclusions: Together, these results support our theoretical model highlighting variation in the effects of discrimination and racism on health behaviors among African Americans, and indicates group-relevant behavioral information, racial identity, behavior relevant affective information, and target of discrimination as moderators of the effect. Implications for conceptualizing the effects of racism and discrimination and for examining racially targeted interventions are discussed.
KW - African Americans
KW - Health behavior
KW - Perceived group-based discrimination
KW - Perceived racism
KW - Racial identity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130324312&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114982
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114982
M3 - Article
C2 - 35484000
AN - SCOPUS:85130324312
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 316
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
M1 - 114982
ER -