The toll of ethnic discrimination on sleep architecture and fatigue.

Abstract

Most work on ethnicity tends to focus on daytime health rather than how aspects of ethnicity affect nighttime functioning. The current study examined how discrimination and ethnic identity relate to sleep architecture and fatigue in 37 African Americans and 56 Caucasian Americans. The authors conducted sleep monitoring with standard polysomnography. African Americans had less slow-wave sleep and reported more physical fatigue than did Caucasian Americans (ps < .05). The authors conducted path analyses to examine relationships between ethnic identity, perceived discrimination, sleep, and fatigue. Perceived discrimination mediated ethnic differences in Stage 4 sleep and physical fatigue. Individuals who reported experiencing more discrimination had less Stage 4 sleep and reported experiencing greater physical fatigue (ps < .05). Although ethnic identity did not mediate ethnic differences in sleep latency, there was a significant relationship between ethnic identity and sleep latency, indicating that individuals who felt more connected to their ethnic group had more difficulty falling asleep while in the hospital (p < .05). These observations suggest that the effects of stress related to one's ethnic group membership carry over into sleep.

Association Between Perceived Discrimination and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Problem Behaviors Among Preadolescent Youths

“…These substantial population-level reductions in racial/ethnic disparities occurred despite the fact that only 15-20% of Black and Latino children reported discrimination; the effects of discrimination on this subset may be so profound that they substantially affect population-level racial/ethnic differences. These results extend prior analyses of the statistical contribution of perceived discrimination to health disparities [25][26][27][28][29] by isolating, for Black and Latino youth separately, the distinct effects of perceived discrimination on health-related problem behaviors. In the case of Latinos, these results suggest that discrimination can have an insidious impact, even when a traditionally disadvantaged group appears to have better sociodemographically-adjusted health outcomes than Whites.…”

“…[25][26][27][28][29] These studies have demonstrated that significant associations between race/ ethnicity and health outcomes decrease or become non-significant when discrimination is controlled, suggesting that discrimination influences inequities. For example, one study found that, after controlling for everyday perceived discrimination, Black (versus White) differences in self-reported health decreased even after adjusting for socio-economic status.…”

Influence of Race and Socioeconomic Status on Sleep: Pittsburgh SleepSCORE Project

“…Although Blacks reported more ongoing problems and less physical activity than Whites/Asians, these factors did not account for obtained differences. It is possible that cultural norms or other psychosocial variables that were not assessed, such as social support or discrimination, are more influential in Blacks' sleep (43). Physiological pathways, such as autonomic functioning, also may be relevant mechanisms for future study (44).…”

Unethical and Unwell: Decrements in Well-Being and Unethical Activity at Work

“…Discrimination can be conceptualized as impacting well-being either as a result of individual-level actions such as biased personnel decisions (Essed, 1991;Landrine and Klonoff, 1996), or ecosocial/systemic conditions such as segregation and glass ceilings (Krieger, 1999). Studies have shown that individuals subjected to discrimination develop psychological, behavioral, and physical maladies such as smoking (Landrine and Klonoff, 1996), somatization and anxiety (Klonoff et al, 1999), general mental health problems (Schneider et al, 2000;Sheridan, 2006), cardiovascular reactivity (Guyll et al, 2001), and sleep problems (Thomas et al, 2006).…”