(BlackNews.com) --
While many medical researchers and
social theorists have most often focused on the plight of underclass
black women, three notable researchers have turned their attention to
the impact of racial and gender stressors on African-American expectant
mothers who present the image of the "American dream" by virtue of
their educational, professional and economic attainment.
The results of this pioneering, three-year study, "Contextualized
Stress, Global Stress, and Depression in Well-Educated, Pregnant,
African-American Women," published by Fleda Mask Jackson, Ph.D., Diane
L. Rowley, M.D., M.P.H., and Tracy Curry Owens, Ph.D., reveal that the
shroud of blackness and the mantle of gender are no less impactful on
the psyche of middle- and upper-class African-American women, despite
the prestige and security associated with university degrees, corner
offices and money in the bank. The findings suggest that well-educated,
pregnant, African-American women are as disproportionately at risk for
adverse birth outcomes as their less fortunate "sisters," and that the
depression linked to their stress has been established as a significant
contributor to poor birth outcomes. The research was supported by
generous funding from the Ford Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The 101 women who collaborated in the study were recruited from private
practice ob-gyn offices and categorized on the basis of the demographic
variables of relationship status, the presence of other children and
annual household income. Age was divided into two categories: 20 to 29
and 30 years and older. Education categories included non-college
educated (having no college degree) and college-educated (having
graduated from a 4-year college). Relationship variables were separated
by partner status: married, partnered and non-partnered. Participants
also indicated if they had other children under 18 years of age, or no
children. Employment variables were divided into currently employed
(full- or part-time job), or unemployed. Lastly, annual household income
was divided into three categories: $10,000 to $30,000, $31,000 to
$50,000, and above $51,000.
The majority of the subjects were college educated, employed, and married or partnered. A cross-sectional study was then conducted utilizing the Jackson, Hogue, Phillips Contextualized Stress Measure (JHP), a measurement of racial and gendered stress, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), an assessment of global stress, to detect their associations and predictions for depression as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II). The results indicated that 35% of the women had high levels of contextualized stress, 40% reported high levels of global stress, and 23% were deemed to be depressed.
Race and gender matter in the lives of African-American women. Their
significance provides the context for how these women experience stress
in the places where they live, work, and go about their daily lives.
This study further demonstrates the level to which these experiences are
inextricably linked to race, gender, and class inequities. While
expectant mothers of all persuasions are driven to contemplate the role
of parenting, pregnant African-American women also bear the additional
and horrendous burden of considering the world into which their children
will be born - a world that offers little black and brown babies fewer
opportunities for growth and development and greater opportunities to
confront the evils of prejudice, bigotry, discrimination and racial
profiling.
The evidence appears to be indisputable – that African-American women
from all socioeconomic backgrounds experience higher rates of poor
pregnancy outcomes, preterm births, small-for-gestational- age babies,
and infant mortality than women from other racial and ethnic groups who
are less educated, unemployed, and uninsured. The link between the
stress experienced by African American women and depression has
implications for postpartum depression and depression across the life
course.
What is most important about this newest research is that its findings
issue a clarion call to health care professionals and local communities
about the importance of being responsive to the unique individual and
environmental-level stressors that jeopardize the health of an entire
community - the expectant mothers, unborn babies, and families of all
African-American women, regardless of their educational, professional,
social or economic standing.
About FLEDA MASK JACKSON, Ph. D., Principal Investigator
Scholar, educator and activist, Fleda Mask Jackson, Ph.D., is president and CEO of the national research firm and think tank MAJAICA, LLC, and the leader and creator of Save 100 Babies, a cross-sector network devoted to a social determinants approach to eliminate racial disparities in birth outcomes. Dr. Jackson currently serves as a senior fellow at the National Center for Health Behavioral Change, Urban Medial Institute, Morgan State University. Her most recent affiliations also include professorships at the Rollins School of Public Health and the Women's Studies Program, Emory University.
A highly regarded lecturer and guest speaker, Dr. Jackson is an alumna
of Spelman College with an M.S. in human development and family ecology
from the University of Illinois, where she published her thesis on
"Socialization Practices Related to Racial Identity Among Black
Middle-Class Mothers," and her doctoral dissertation, "The Role of The
Black Church in the Socialization and Education of Black Children." With
academic preparation in education, psychology, and anthropology, Dr.
Jackson has been working with public health departments, private
physicians and social agencies across the country to bring attention to
the importance of addressing stress and depression in the ways they are
experienced by African-American women and toward developing remedies for
closing the racial gap in birth outcomes.
Dr. Jackson has served as a consultant and advisor for a wide range of
organizations that include the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies; Center for Excellence in Women's Health, Harvard University
Medical School; Ford Foundation (SisterSong); Rhea and Lawton Chiles
Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies, University of South Florida; and
Children's Defense Fund. Dr. Jackson currently serves as a member of
the National Advisory Committee on Health Disparities for the director
of the Centers for Disease Control, and recently has been approved by
the White House and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to
serve on the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality.
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