My research program examines the ways that racism and overexposure to stressors stymie the health and longevity of Black Americans.

First-Author Publications

In my first peer-reviewed study, “From Underdiagnosis to Overrepresentation: Black Children, ADHD, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” I argue that while attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) may be over-diagnosed among American children in general, the underdiagnosis of ADHD among Black children relative to white children directly results from structural and institutional racism embedded within school policing policies and the tendency to dismiss Black illness while criminalizing normative child behavior among Black children. I followed up this work by collecting qualitative data for a study called “‘Us Against Them’: Schools, Families, and the Diagnosis of ADHD among Black Children,” which reveals a stark conflict between the school and the community.

Lastly, I use the life course framework to explain the novel ways that racial minorities’ overexposure to stress erodes health over time, and how individuals’ experiences of stress can impact those whom they are closely tied to through the ‘linked lives’ concept. In “For Better or Worse: An Assessment of the ‘Linked Lives’ Concept and the Race-Based Effects of Partner Stress on Self-Rated Health among Older Adults,” I examine the impact of partner stress on older adults’ self-rated health while highlighting the racial and ethnic contrasts in outcomes. Based on the results, I argue that Black Americans are more at risk for experiencing poor health consequences of partner stress, and thus, they may net less benefit from marriage, an institution that is traditionally understood to offer protective health effects.

I also use stress theory to study the predictors of mortality that are unique to Black Americans, such as racism as a social stressor. Currently, I am interested in using novel perspectives from the race-related stress framework to assess how various forms of race-related stress and psychosocial resources intersect to predict the mental and physical health outcomes of Black Americans over the life course.

My Dissertation

For my dissertation, I am considering how vicarious racial discrimination affects the well-being of Black American adults among a community sample through a three-study format:

•  Study #1 investigates the social epidemiology of personal and vicarious racism among Black Americans. The goal of this study is to examine whether certain sociodemographic factors contribute to respondents’ self-reports of personal and vicarious experiences of racism.

• Study #2 assesses the prevalence of personal and vicarious experiences of racism, while also comparing of the effects of the various forms of discrimination on the respondents’ subjective well-being.

• Study #3 investigates whether personal experiences of discrimination and certain psychosocial resources moderate the relationship between various vicarious experiences of discrimination on the respondents’ subjective well-being.

Preliminary findings from these studies suggest that researchers may be underestimating the toll of the full race-related stress experience on the well-being of Black Americans using previous measures that do not account for vicarious racism.

Research Appointments

Currently, I work as a research assistant at the new Center for Health Equity Transformation at the University of Kentucky.

As a member of the Disparities Researchers Equalizing Access for Minorities (DREAM) Scholars Program, I am currently being funded to conceptualize ways to adapt current measures of discrimination that situate the individual into full life contexts and measure the race-related stress experience more accurately in hopes to apply for future grants to capture data that will allow me to analyze these phenomena.

I am also working with several undergraduate students at the University of Kentucky as the Research Program Coordinator for the Students Participating as Ambassadors of Research in Kentucky (SPARK) Program. The students learn how to write a small grant, operate a budget, develop a research protocol, adhere to human subjects and research integrity standards, intersect with community members, and build their CV/resumes for future employment or academic prospects. I offer them training and mentorship as they complete research projects on a salient health disparity issue in their home community.

Lastly, I have attended the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research in University of Michigan-Ann Arbor as a Clifford C. Clogg Scholarship recipient for additional training in research methods.