The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #62168

Ziya Gizlice, NC- Division of Public Health, 1908 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1908, 919-715-4481, ziya.gizlice@ncmail.net, Harry Herrick, NC-SCHS, DPH, 1908 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1908, and Emmanuel M. Ngui, Department of Maternal & Child Health, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB# 7400, 400 Rosenau Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7400.

The Nation aims to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities by 2010. Increasingly, racism has been implicated as a cause of health disparities. This study investigates the impact of racism on quality of life, health health conditions and access to health care.

Data were analyzed from the 2002 North Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, a statewide telephone survey of non-institutionalized adult residents. Two measures of racism were examined for two groups reporting: (1) being treated worse than other races when seeking health care, and (2) having emotional and/or physical symptoms due to unfair racial treatment.

Both racism measures were strongly associated with poor physical/mental health, and having disability after controlling for gender, race, age, income, and chronic diseases. Approximately half of the unfairly treated group rated their health as ‘fair/poor’ compared to 15% for all others (OR=3.84). Poor quality of life among the unfairly treated groups was similar to that among persons with chronic health conditions. Both racism measures were significantly associated with an increased risk of having diabetes (OR=2.72), asthma (OR=1.18) and arthritis (OR=2.73).

The effects of unfair treatment were strongly associated with lower life quality, higher rates of chronic disease prevalence and less access to health care for Whites and Blacks; however, the unfair treatment rate was 5 times higher among Blacks.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn about relations between unfair racial treatment and quality of life, health behaviors and conditions. They will also learn about questions that are used in NC Behavioral Risk factor Surveillance System to measure perviced racism and how well they work.

Keywords: Quality of Life, Chronic Diseases

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.