Differences in the self-reported racism experiences of US-born and foreign-born Black pregnant women

Tyan Parker Dominguez, Emily Ficklin Strong, Nancy Krieger, Matthew W. Gillman and Janet W. Rich-Edwards

Social Science & Medicine, 2009, vol. 69, issue 2, 258-265

Abstract: Differential exposure to minority status stressors may help explain differences in United States (US)-born and foreign-born Black women's birth outcomes. We explored self-reports of racism recorded in a survey of 185 US-born and 114 foreign-born Black pregnant women enrolled in Project Viva, a prospective cohort study of pregnant women in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Self-reported prevalence of personal racism and group racism was significantly higher among US-born than foreign-born Black pregnant women, with US-born women having 4.1 and 7.8 times the odds, respectively, of childhood exposure. In multivariate analyses, US-born women's personal and group racism exposure also was more pervasive across the eight life domains we queried. Examined by immigrant subgroups, US-born women were more similar in their self-reports of racism to foreign-born women who moved to the US before age 18 than to women who immigrated after age 18. Moreover, US-born women more closely resembled foreign-born women from the Caribbean than those from Africa. Differential exposure to self-reported racism over the life course may be a critically important factor that distinguishes US-born Black women from their foreign-born counterparts.

Keywords: Racism; Women; Stress; Pregnancy; Health; disparities; Blacks; Immigrants; Nativity; United; States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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