Cook Center Core Faculty Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards recently published a paper in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (JREHD) that details how, while racial discrimination leads to negative cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among African American women and men, religious coping may be a fruitful mechanism for mitigating these negative effects.
Dr. Bentley-Edwards, the Associate Director of Research and Director of the Health Equity Working Group for the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and an Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, at Duke University, was a co-author on the paper, titled “Racial Discrimination, Religious Coping, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Among African American Women and Men.”
The paper uses a cross-sectional study to see the associations between these various factors. The paper’s findings suggest that religious coping might mitigate the effects of racial discrimination on CVD risk for African American men but not women; however, additional work is needed to understand the degree to which these mitigating factors are effective.
The paper can be read here.
