Resilience when combined with educational attainment can be life altering
White Americans live on average 3.6 years longer than black Americans. If you look only at men, the difference becomes 4.4 years.
As I found in a recent study, the main reason behind this disparity is that black Americans are at higher risk of most chronic medical conditions, such as hypertension, obesity, heart disease, stroke and cancer than other racial and ethnic groups.
However, research suggests minority groups in the U.S. tend to be better off in terms of mental health than white Americans. Depression, anxiety and suicide, for instance, are more common among white Americans than black Americans.
Research, including work I have done with my colleagues at the Grand Canyon University demonstrates that although white Americans are, on average, the “healthiest group,” they are also, on average, far less “resilient” than black Americans. It seems that vulnerability is a cost of privilege, and resilience comes as a result of adversity.
We call a group “resilient” when it is healthy, given the level of exposures to a wide range of psychosocial risk factors. For instance, psychosocial adversities such as lower educational attainment are associated with increased mortality in general. But the effect is lower in some groups than others, so we would describe the groups where the effect is lower as more resilient.
White Americans seem to be more vulnerable to certain psychosocial risk factors for a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes compared to minority groups. In other words, they are less resilient – less able to successfully adapt to life tasks in the face of highly adverse conditions.
Across several studies using nationally representative samples of Americans, my colleagues and I have consistently found that white Americans are more vulnerable to the effects of risk factors such as low education, anger, depression, feeling of control over own’s life and other psychosocial factors on mortality.
Why are white Americans less resilient? One explanation is that, in general, they are not as prepared to cope with adversities because they have less experience dealing with them.
This lack of preparedness and experience with previous stressors may place whites at the highest risk of poor outcomes when life gets out of control. Minority groups, on the other hand, have consistently lived under economic and social adversities which has given them firsthand experience and ability to believe that they can handle the new stressors. For blacks a stressor is anything but new. They have mastered their coping skills.
Population groups differ in how resilient they are when they face stress and other adversities. This is relevant to a proverb that all of us have heard frequently: What does not kill you makes you stronger.
Educational attainment is one of the main protective factors for our health. First, educational attainment leads to better jobs with better pay, and second, it develops our brain and behavior so we can make better decisions and live a healthier life.
Resilience when combined with educational attainment can be life altering. San Antonio voters approved funding for Ready 4 Work SA. A five year education and work force development initiative aim at providing job training and education for anyone who has been impacted by COVID. If you are Black and feel that opportunities have avoided you, SA Ready 4 Work is for you! Follow this story on our website www.saobserver.com to her what San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg has to say about this ground breaking opportunity.
