Exposing Racial Discrimination Implicit & Explicit Measures–The My Body, My Story Study of 1005 US-Born Black & White Community Health Center Members
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2011-11
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Background--To date, research on racial discrimination and health typically has employed explicit self-report measures, despite their potentially being affected by what people are able and willing to say. We accordingly employed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) for racial discrimination, first developed and used in two recent published studies, and measured associations of the explicit and implicit discrimination measures with each other, socioeconomic and psychosocial variables, and smoking. Methodology/Principal Findings--Among the 504 black and 501 white US-born participants, age 35–64, randomly recruited in 2008–2010 from 4 community health centers in Boston, MA, black participants were over 1.5 times more likely (p<0.05) to be worse off economically (e.g., for poverty and low education) and have higher social desirability scores (43.8 vs. 28.2); their explicit discrimination exposure was also 2.5 to 3.7 times higher (p<0.05) depending on the measure used, with over 60% reporting exposure in 3 or more domains and within the last year. Higher IAT scores for target vs. perpetrator of discrimination occurred for the black versus white participants: for “black person vs. white person”: 0.26 vs. 0.13; and for “me vs. them”: 0.24 vs. 0.19. In both groups, only low non-significant correlations existed between the implicit and explicit discrimination measures; social desirability was significantly associated with the explicit but not implicit measures. Although neither the explicit nor implicit discrimination measures were associated with odds of being a current smoker, the excess risk for black participants (controlling for age and gender) rose in models that also controlled for the racial discrimination and psychosocial variables; additional control for socioeconomic position sharply reduced and rendered the association null. Conclusions--Implicit and explicit measures of racial discrimination are not equivalent and both warrant use in research on racial discrimination and health, along with data on socioeconomic position and social desirability.
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Krieger, N, PD Waterman, A Kosheleva, JT Chen, DR Carney, KW Smith, GG Bennett, DR Williams, et al. (2011). Exposing Racial Discrimination Implicit & Explicit Measures–The My Body, My Story Study of 1005 US-Born Black & White Community Health Center Members. 10.1371/journal.pone.0027636 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/5959.
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Gary G. Bennett
Gary G. Bennett, Ph.D., is dean of the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University.
As dean, Dr. Bennett is responsible for defining and articulating the strategic mission of Trinity College, ensuring a world-class liberal arts education in a research environment for all students, and attracting, retaining, and nurturing a diverse community of distinguished faculty.
Dr. Bennett is a professor of psychology & neuroscience, global health, medicine, and nursing, and is the founding director of the Duke Digital Health Science Center. He is a global leader in designing, testing, and disseminating digital behavior change interventions. Dr. Bennett developed the interactive obesity treatment approach (iOTA); his recent work demonstrates the effectiveness of digital strategies in treating obesity in the primary care setting.
Nearly 20 years ago, Dr. Bennett created one of the first digital health research programs. His laboratory has since become a global leader in designing, testing, and disseminating digital behavior change interventions, especially for medically vulnerable populations. Dr. Bennett has authored nearly 200 scientific papers, and the National Institutes of Health have continuously funded his research program with more than $20m in grant support. From 2018-2019, Dr. Bennett served as president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the nation's largest organization of behavioral change scientists. Dr. Bennett is an elected Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and Behavioral Medicine Research Council member.
Before assuming his role as dean of Trinity College in February 2023, Dr. Bennett served as vice provost for undergraduate education. He provided strategic vision and leadership for Duke’s undergraduate experience. As vice provost, he oversaw the Office of Undergraduate Education, comprising 15 units that enrich Duke's undergraduate academic experience through academic advising, academic support, nationally competitive scholarships, merit scholar programs, financial aid, study abroad, and several co-curricular programs. Under Bennett’s leadership, Duke introduced several advancements to make the undergraduate experience more enriching and equitable for all students, including the DukeLIFE program to support first-generation and low-income students, and QuadEx, Duke’s inclusive living and learning model that integrates undergraduates’ social, residential and intellectual experiences.
Dr. Bennett is a member of Duke's Bass Society of Fellows and is the founding director of Duke's undergraduate major in global health. He has served on committees to examine Duke's undergraduate curriculum and develop the university's strategic plan and has co-led the Board of Trustees Undergraduate Education Committee since 2018. His students' course ratings have repeatedly placed Dr. Bennett in the top 5% of Duke's undergraduate instructors.
Dr. Bennett has also co-founded three digital health ventures. Crimson Health Solutions developed digital disease management interventions and was acquired by Health Dialog in 2007. In 2014, he co founded Scale Down, a digital obesity treatment startup based on the science of daily self-weighing. Scale Down was acquired by Anthem in 2017. He is a co-founder of Coeus Health, a leading provider of health APIs. Dr. Bennett advises leading digital health and consumer electronic organizations on the science of health behavior change.
Before joining Duke in 2009, Dr. Bennett served on the Harvard School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute faculties. Dr. Bennett earned a bachelor's degree at Morehouse College, an AM and PhD in clinical health psychology at Duke University, completed a clinical internship in medical psychology at the Duke University Medical Center, and was the Alonzo Yerby postdoctoral fellow in social epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Dr. Bennett lives in Raleigh with his wife (also a Duke alum) and his two daughters.
Unless otherwise indicated, scholarly articles published by Duke faculty members are made available here with a CC-BY-NC (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial) license, as enabled by the Duke Open Access Policy. If you wish to use the materials in ways not already permitted under CC-BY-NC, please consult the copyright owner. Other materials are made available here through the author’s grant of a non-exclusive license to make their work openly accessible.