While the link between interpersonal discrimination and chronic health problems is well recognized, researchers still need to understand how discrimination drives health inequities and how to mitigate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nebraska psychologist Arthur \u201cTrey\u201d Andrews offers a fresh perspective. Rather than studying how episodes of discrimination affect people individually \u2013 the traditional approach \u2013 he\u2019s studying how discrimination-related stress ripples across a social network, impacting its collective health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But because social networks are also protective against stress, Andrews is working to pinpoint how they can confer health resilience \u2013 without causing spillover stress. To find out, he\u2019s studying about 400 Hispanic people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really getting at this notion about how discrimination stress, and really stress in general, doesn\u2019t stay within the individual,\u201d said Andrews, associate professor of psychology and ethnic studies and associate director of the university\u2019s Minority Health Disparities Initiative. \u201cWe aren\u2019t isolated islands. Those around us help us carry that stress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrews\u2019 team will determine how discrimination exposure affects a person\u2019s allostatic load, or the bodily wear and tear from stress. Their assessment uses stress reactivity tests and noninvasive physiological biomarkers like cholesterol, an inflammation-related protein, a diabetes indicator and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To analyze social network effects, Andrews uses the Open Dynamic Interaction Network. Through this software platform, participants provide information about daily experiences of discrimination and social support. Their responses could be supplemented by ODIN\u2019s use of Bluetooth data, which can anonymously detect when participants are in close proximity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using advanced modeling techniques, the team will illuminate how discrimination stress cascades across a network and identify the network characteristics that reduce stress. This will shed light on how real-life practices and policies \u2013 like mentorship initiatives, hiring and retention efforts, and clinical guidelines \u2013 can curb discrimination\u2019s health impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health funds this project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the link between interpersonal discrimination and chronic health problems is well recognized, researchers still need to understand how discrimination drives health inequities and how to mitigate it. Nebraska psychologist Arthur \u201cTrey\u201d Andrews offers a fresh perspective. Rather than studying how episodes of discrimination affect people individually \u2013 the traditional approach \u2013 he\u2019s studying how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[168,162,70,163,116,161,167,165,160,164,166,159],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-uncategorized","tag-bilal-khan","tag-discrimination-stress","tag-health-equity","tag-minority-health-disparities-initiative","tag-national-institutes-of-health","tag-open-dynamic-interaction-network","tag-patrick-habecker","tag-sara-reyes","tag-social-network","tag-tierney-lorenz","tag-timothy-nelson","tag-trey-andrews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}