Ethnic discrimination and health

January 8, 2015
University of Colorado Denver

Women who experience racial discrimination while pregnant suffer significant health impacts that are
passed on to their infants, new research has found.

New research from the University of Colorado Denver shows that women who
experience racial discrimination while pregnant suffer significant health impacts that are
passed on to their infants.
"Many people think that ethnic discrimination only has psychological impacts," said the study's
lead author Zaneta Thayer, PhD, assistant professor of Anthropology at CU Denver, a major center of
timely, topical and relevant research.
"But in fact, ethnic discrimination can impact physical health as well, possibly through
changes in stress physiology functioning."
Thayer's research, published this week in the journal `Social Science & Medicine,' may be the first to
draw a direct connection between ethnic discrimination and impacts on stress hormones in pregnant
women and infants.
The research was done in Auckland, New Zealand where Thayer examined 64 pregnant women of
various ethnic backgrounds.
The women filled out questionnaires asking whether they had been being harassed, verbally or
physically attacked, insulted, ignored or condescended to based on their ethnicity.
Researchers then collected saliva samples from the women in the morning and the evening to
measure cortisol levels.
Cortisol is a stress hormone which, if overproduced, can lead to a host of chronic ailments including
cardiovascular disease and mental illness. Infant saliva was also analyzed along with birth outcome
information such as weight, length, head circumference and length of gestation.
One third of the women reported being discriminated against which was associated with
higher levels of evening cortisol.
Notably, this association remained after controlling for material deprivation, suggesting that the
impacts of discrimination experience on maternal cortisol are independent of socioeconomic status.
"To our knowledge this is the first study to report an association between maternal ethnic
discrimination and maternal stress physiology in pregnancy or with stress in infancy," Thayer said.
For Thayer, who studies how social inequalities create health inequalities, the findings indicate that
discrimination may produce far reaching physiological changes.

"The finding that offspring of women who experienced ethnic discrimination had greater cortisol
reactivity in early infancy adds to the growing evidence that a woman's emotional, physical and mental
well-being, during or around the time of pregnancy can influence the biology of her child," she said.
In light of this, Thayer said, reducing ethnic discrimination may not only improve the health of
those directly impacted but also that of future generations.

Journal Reference:
1.

Zaneta M. Thayer, Christopher W. Kuzawa. Ethnic Discrimination Predicts Poor Self-rated

Health and Cortisol in Pregnancy: Insights from New Zealand.Social Science & Medicine,
2015; DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.01.003

Cite This Page:

University of Colorado Denver. "Ethnic discrimination and health: Direct link found." ScienceDaily.
ScienceDaily, 8 January 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150108084907.htm>.

Landmark 'Ossi' Discrimination Case: Court to Decide if East Germans are Ethnic
Group (2010)
A woman born in the former East Germany claims she was discriminated against on the
basis of her ethnic identity when a company wrote "Ossi" on her rejected application. A
labor court in Stuttgart will rule on this thorny issue of German identity on Thursday.
That is what a woman born in the former East Germany is claiming. She says she was
discriminated against on the basis of that identity when she sought a job in western Germany. A
labor court in the western city of Stuttgart is set to rule on Thursday whether being an Ossi -- as
Easterners are frequently called in Germany, often disparagingly -- indeed constitutes
belonging to a separate ethnic group.
Born in East Berlin, Gabriele S. secured an exit visa for West Germany in 1988 and has since lived
in Stuttgart. In the summer of 2009, the 49-year-old applied for a job at a window
manufacturer in the city. She failed to get the job and when her application was
returned to her, as is customary in Germany, she found that someone had scribbled
"Ossi" and a minus sign across her resume.

S. is now suing the company for discrimination, saying they rejected her based on her ethnic
background. "What else can it mean?" she asked SPIEGEL. "Even the word 'Ossi' is not acceptable
in this context."
'Tip of the Iceberg'
S. is suing on the basis of the Germany's anti-discrimination legislation, which states that someone
cannot be discriminated against in their professional life on the basis of race or ethnic background.
The court in Stuttgart will have to grapple with the thorny issue of whether the differences
between those born in the East and West make them distinct ethnic groups.
Her lawyer Wolfgang Nau says that discrimination on the basis of coming from East Germany is a
daily occurrence, but no employer had been stupid enough until now to put it in writing. "This is
the tip of the iceberg," he told the Agence France Press news agency. He says that there is no
question that East Germans constitute an ethnic group, developing their own sense of belonging
based on language, customs, culture and cuisine, which differentiates them from other groups.
'Ossi' as Insult
However, Wolf Reuter, the lawyer representing the company that S. is suing, says that ethnic
identity only builds up over generations, and the GDR was only isolated for a single generation. He
told the German news agency DDP that the word "Ossi" written on the application simply referred
to the woman's qualifications and that the company had good experiences with employees from
the former East.
Many Germans who hail from the former East regard the term "Ossi" as an insult, though many
easterners in turn use "Wessi" as a derogatory term.
While the woman in this case went to the West before the fall of the Wall, much higher
unemployment rates in the former East have led to a huge internal migration of people to western
Germany in search of work over the past 20 years.
If S. wins her case then the company will have to pay her three months wages amounting to
4,800 ($6,546). "In this kind of situation, there is no other choice but to punish the company in
this way. It will only hurt if they have to pay," she told SPIEGEL.
"It is time to put a stop to this Ossi-Wessi stuff," she said.