Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-7-2021
Publication Title
Journal of Family and Community Medicine
Volume
28
Issue
3
First page number:
175
Last page number:
180
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The self-rated health of Arab Americans has been found to be worse than non-Hispanic whites. Psychosocial factors such as stress and acculturation may explain this disparity. As a result, we designed this survey to better understand the effects of stress and acculturation on the self-rated health of the Arab-American community. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using a convenience sample, we surveyed 142 self-identified Arab Americans regarding demographics, stress, acculturation, and self-rated health. Stress was measured using instruments assessing perceived stress, everyday discrimination, and acculturative stress. Acculturation was measured using a modified Vancouver Index of Acculturation. To measure self-rated health, participants were asked to rate their current health on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). RESULTS: A logistic regression model adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, and education did not find that stress significantly affected the odds of having poor self-rated health in Arab Americans. Heritage identity was associated with lower odds of having poor self-rated health (odds ratio = 0.37, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.15, 0.94, P < 0.05). No association was found between acculturation and poor self-rated health. CONCLUSION: Greater levels of stress were not significantly associated with greater odds of poor self-rated health in Arab Americans. We also found that greater heritage identity significantly decreased the odds of poor self-rated health in Arab Americans. The effects of everyday discrimination, perceived stress, and acculturation on self-rated health in Arab Americans remain unclear and need to be examined further.
Keywords
Acculturation; Arab American; Detroit metropolitan area; Self-rated health; Stress
Disciplines
Arabic Studies | Community Health
File Format
File Size
664 KB
Language
English
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Repository Citation
Suleiman, A.,
Javanbakht, A.,
Whitfield, K.
(2021).
The Effect of Stress and Acculturation on the Self-Rated Health of Arab Americans.
Journal of Family and Community Medicine, 28(3),
175-180.
Available at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/jfcm.jfcm_150_21