IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v73y2011i7p1045-1053.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Responding to racism: Insights on how racism can damage health from an urban study of Australian Aboriginal people

Author

Listed:
  • Ziersch, Anna M.
  • Gallaher, Gilbert
  • Baum, Fran
  • Bentley, Michael

Abstract

This paper examines responses to racism and the pathways through which racism can affect health and wellbeing for Aboriginal people living in an urban environment. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in 2006/07 with 153 Aboriginal people living in Adelaide, Australia. Participants were asked about their experience of, and responses to, racism, and the impact of these experiences on their health. Racism was regularly experienced by 93% of participants. Almost two thirds of people felt that racism affected their health. Using a thematic analysis with a particular focus on how agency and structure interacted, a number of key reactions and responses to racism were identified. These included: emotional and physiological reactions; and responses such as gaining support from social networks; confronting the person/situation; ignoring it; avoiding situations where they might experience racism; ‘minimising’ the significance or severity of racism or questioning whether incidents were racist; and consuming alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. A further theme was a conscious decision to not ‘allow’ racism to affect health. Our study found that most people used more than one of these coping strategies, and that strategies were selected with an awareness of positive and negative health impacts. While individuals demonstrated substantial agency in their responses, there were clear structural constraints on how they reacted and responded. We found that not only was racism potentially detrimental to health, but so too were some responses. However, while some strategies appeared ‘healthier’ than others, most strategies entailed costs and benefits, and these depended on the meanings of responses for individuals. This paper concludes that initiatives to promote health-protective responses to racism need to consider structural constraints and the overarching goal of reducing systemic racism.

Suggested Citation

  • Ziersch, Anna M. & Gallaher, Gilbert & Baum, Fran & Bentley, Michael, 2011. "Responding to racism: Insights on how racism can damage health from an urban study of Australian Aboriginal people," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(7), pages 1045-1053.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:7:p:1045-1053
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.058
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611004266
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.058?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Williams, D.R. & Neighbors, H.W. & Jackson, J.S., 2003. "Racial/ethnic discrimination and health: Findings from community studies," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(2), pages 200-208.
    2. Krieger, N. & Sidney, S., 1996. "Racial discrimination and blood pressure: The CARDIA study of young black and white adults," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 86(10), pages 1370-1378.
    3. Harrell, J.P. & Hall, S. & Taliaferro, J., 2003. "Physiological responses to racism and discrimination: An assessment of the evidence," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(2), pages 243-248.
    4. Harris, Ricci & Tobias, Martin & Jeffreys, Mona & Waldegrave, Kiri & Karlsen, Saffron & Nazroo, James, 2006. "Racism and health: The relationship between experience of racial discrimination and health in New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1428-1441, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Katrina D Hopkins & Stephen R Zubrick & Catherine L Taylor, 2014. "Resilience amongst Australian Aboriginal Youth: An Ecological Analysis of Factors Associated with Psychosocial Functioning in High and Low Family Risk Contexts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-12, July.
    2. Came, H. & Doole, C. & McKenna, B. & McCreanor, T., 2018. "Institutional racism in public health contracting: Findings of a nationwide survey from New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 132-139.
    3. Markwick, Alison & Ansari, Zahid & Sullivan, Mary & McNeil, John, 2015. "Social determinants and psychological distress among Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander adults in the Australian state of Victoria: A cross-sectional population based study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 178-187.
    4. Waterworth, Pippa & Rosenberg, Michael & Braham, Rebecca & Pescud, Melanie & Dimmock, James, 2014. "The effect of social support on the health of Indigenous Australians in a metropolitan community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 139-146.
    5. Browne-Yung, Kathryn & Ziersch, Anna & Baum, Fran & Gallaher, Gilbert, 2013. "Aboriginal Australians' experience of social capital and its relevance to health and wellbeing in urban settings," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 20-28.
    6. Senese, Laura C. & Wilson, Kathi, 2013. "Aboriginal urbanization and rights in Canada: Examining implications for health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 219-228.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Williams, David R. & Gonzalez, Hector M. & Williams, Stacey & Mohammed, Selina A. & Moomal, Hashim & Stein, Dan J., 2008. "Perceived discrimination, race and health in South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 441-452, August.
    2. Chae, David H. & Lincoln, Karen D. & Adler, Nancy E. & Syme, S. Leonard, 2010. "Do experiences of racial discrimination predict cardiovascular disease among African American men? The moderating role of internalized negative racial group attitudes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1182-1188, September.
    3. Forrest-Bank, Shandra S. & Jenson, Jeffery M., 2015. "The relationship among childhood risk and protective factors, racial microaggression and ethnic identity, and academic self-efficacy and antisocial behavior in young adulthood," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 64-74.
    4. Borrell, Luisa N. & Kiefe, Catarina I. & Williams, David R. & Diez-Roux, Ana V. & Gordon-Larsen, Penny, 2006. "Self-reported health, perceived racial discrimination, and skin color in African Americans in the CARDIA study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1415-1427, September.
    5. Krieger, Nancy & Smith, Kevin & Naishadham, Deepa & Hartman, Cathy & Barbeau, Elizabeth M., 2005. "Experiences of discrimination: Validity and reliability of a self-report measure for population health research on racism and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 1576-1596, October.
    6. Gaeul Kim & Jinmok Kim & Su-Kyoung Lee & Juho Sim & Yangwook Kim & Byung-Yoon Yun & Jin-Ha Yoon, 2020. "Multidimensional gender discrimination in workplace and depressive symptoms," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-13, July.
    7. Dušan Drbohlav & Dagmar Dzúrová, 2017. "Social Hazards as Manifested Workplace Discrimination and Health (Vietnamese and Ukrainian Female and Male Migrants in Czechia)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-16, October.
    8. Lindström, Martin, 2008. "Social capital, anticipated ethnic discrimination and self-reported psychological health: A population-based study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 1-13, January.
    9. Gee, Gilbert C. & Spencer, Michael & Chen, Juan & Yip, Tiffany & Takeuchi, David T., 2007. "The association between self-reported racial discrimination and 12-month DSM-IV mental disorders among Asian Americans nationwide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(10), pages 1984-1996, May.
    10. Gee, Gilbert & Walsemann, Katrina, 2009. "Does health predict the reporting of racial discrimination or do reports of discrimination predict health? Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 1676-1684, May.
    11. Gilbert, Paul A. & Zemore, Sarah E., 2016. "Discrimination and drinking: A systematic review of the evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 178-194.
    12. Leena Eklund Karlsson & Kristine Crondahl & Fredrik Sunnemark & Åsa Andersson, 2013. "The Meaning of Health, Well-Being, and Quality of Life Perceived by Roma People in West Sweden," Societies, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-18, June.
    13. Korous, Kevin M. & Causadias, José M. & Casper, Deborah M., 2017. "Racial discrimination and cortisol output: A meta-analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 90-100.
    14. Lukachko, Alicia & Hatzenbuehler, Mark L. & Keyes, Katherine M., 2014. "Structural racism and myocardial infarction in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 42-50.
    15. Mario L. Small & Devah Pager, 2020. "Sociological Perspectives on Racial Discrimination," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 49-67, Spring.
    16. Hudson, Darrell L. & Puterman, Eli & Bibbins-Domingo, Kirsten & Matthews, Karen A. & Adler, Nancy E., 2013. "Race, life course socioeconomic position, racial discrimination, depressive symptoms and self-rated health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 7-14.
    17. Harris, Ricci & Tobias, Martin & Jeffreys, Mona & Waldegrave, Kiri & Karlsen, Saffron & Nazroo, James, 2006. "Racism and health: The relationship between experience of racial discrimination and health in New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1428-1441, September.
    18. Bastos, Joao Luiz & Celeste, Roger Keller & Faerstein, Eduardo & Barros, Aluisio J.D., 2010. "Racial discrimination and health: A systematic review of scales with a focus on their psychometric properties," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1091-1099, April.
    19. Liat Ayalon, 2018. "Perceived Age Discrimination: A Precipitator or a Consequence of Depressive Symptoms?," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 860-869.
    20. Johnston, David W. & Lordan, Grace, 2012. "Discrimination makes me sick! An examination of the discrimination–health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 99-111.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:7:p:1045-1053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.