Abstracts Category : Other

Racial Discrimination, Racial Identity Attitudes, andObesity Among African American Collegiate Women

by Laura Eileen Manns-James

African American women have poorer pregnancy outcomesthan other groups in the U.S., and this disparity is not fullyunderstood. Preconceptional health status, including obesity,influences pregnancy outcomes, and chronic stress may increaseobesity via Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction.Racial discrimination (RD) as a chronic stressor may contribute toobesity; however racial identity attitudes may reduce negativehealth effects of race-related stress.This cross-sectional studyinvestigated relationships among three manifestations ofinterpersonal RD (overt, microaggressions and vicarious), explicitand implicit racial identity attitudes, and objective measures ofobesity in 136 collegiate African American women aged 18 to 25years. Participants were recruited using multiple methods.Correlations and multiple regression were used to answer researchquestions. Microaggressions explained variance in obesity andcentral adiposity, with obesity measures increasing asmicroaggressions rose. Overt RD also explained variance in obesitymeasures, but inverse relationships were observed. Private regardwas significantly inversely correlated with both obesity andcentral adiposity, and ethnic identity was significantly inverselycorrelated with waist circumference. Interactions between publicregard, centrality, implicit racial identity and all three RDmeasures explained variance in obesity and central adiposity. Asecondary aim was to assess the acceptability of assessingHypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis functioning through theuse of cortisol derived from hair samples. Few hair cortisolstudies to date have included African American participants, andmost have focused on older populations. Participants who acceptedand declined hair sampling described their reasons via anopen-ended written survey question. Seventy-one women (52%) tookpart in hair sampling.Advisors/Committee Members: Anthony, Mary (Committee Chair).