Race Differences in Physical and Mental Health Disparities: Biological Mechanisms and Behavioral Change

Award Year: 2009	Investigator: James Jackson	Budget: $335,000	Categories: Health Disparities, Mental Health
Abstract: Despite well-known physical health disparities between blacks and whites, a puzzling research paradox shows no major differences in mental health disorders between the racial groups. James S. Jackson, Ph.D., Daniel Katz Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, will explore the reasons behind these seemingly conflicting findings. His study, Race Difference in Physical and Mental Health Disparities: Biological Mechanisms and Behavioral Change, will consider the connection between mental and physical health and examine how the effects of stressful living conditions combined with unhealthy behaviors may create the patterns of health disparities that many policymakers and health care providers find perplexing. Using the Affordances Framework, a new and complex way of thinking about disparities, Dr. Jackson will analyze how available coping strategies, such as overeating, smoking, alcohol and drug use, may lead to non-compliance with medical advice contributing to the onset and course of chronic diseases in blacks, while buffering the downward spiral toward mental illness. Dr. Jackson believes the framework offers a fundamentally different approach to how we might view the root causes of disparities (especially in cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes), if blacks and other highly-stressed population groups preserve their mental health by continuing to engage in unhealthy behaviors, rather than adhering to recommended lifestyle changes. His findings should produce information that can enhance understanding and guide the design of more effective interventions and programs for reducing health disparities.