Media contact: Yvonne Taunton
Myles Moody, Ph.D.A discussion about why discrimination can negatively affect the health of Black Americans, hosted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will be held at noon Friday, Feb. 12.
The free, virtual lecture is part of the Theodore Haddin Arts and Sciences Forum, an ongoing UAB College of Arts and Sciences lecture series.
Myles Moody, Ph.D., assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Sociology, will lead the presentation. Moody’s research focuses on racial disparities in health and how vicarious racism creates social stress that adversely affects the health of Black Americans. He will discuss secondhand experiences of discrimination and their health effects on the Black community.
While there is extensive proof documenting the adverse effects of perceived discrimination on the health of Black Americans, systematic review and meta-analyses have shown that these studies have primarily investigated the direct effects of discrimination on health outcomes, Moody says. Recognizing discriminatory stress and lower levels of subjective well-being as potential barriers for Black Americans’ achieving optimal health over the life span, Moody uses an all-Black community sample to address the question of how secondhand experiences of major discrimination are associated with the subjective well-being of Black American adults.
The Haddin Forum is a venue for CAS faculty to talk about their research with their colleagues, students and members of the public, and is designed to celebrate faculty work and launch new conversations. Each academic year, the Forum presents a series of five or six informal lectures from a cross-section of departments in the university.