It has long been known that someone’s socioeconomic status can have a significant effect on that person’s health and that there are significant health disparities between different socioeconomic groups. When discussing how race plays a role in health disparities often the focus is on the effect of race on socioeconomic status and how this affects race. However, even within the same socioeconomic status, race plays a role in disparities in health. In the American Journal of Public Health in 2005, Clarence Gravlee published his finding on how race effects blood pressure even within the same socioeconomic status groups in the article, “Skin Color, Social Classification, and Blood Pressure in Southeastern Puerto Rico.” According to this article people who were considered black had higher blood pressure that those who were considered members of other racial groups within the same social strata. Throughout this paper, I will discuss how biological and cultural constructions of race and racial health disparities come together.
Gravlee studied the effect of skin color on a person’s blood pressure in the country of Puerto Rico. One reason that the country of Puerto Rico was selected is because “the local cultural model of color differs from the American model of race in important ways. In particular, color classification is shaped not only by skin color but also by other physical features and, possibly, by social status markers like wealth, family background, or residential area. One consequence is that, for a given level of skin pigmentation, there should be variability in social classification, making it possible to measure the cultural and biological dimensions of skin color as distinct variables” (Gravlee, 2005). Thus, in Puerto Rico, the color pigmentation of someone’s skin is associated with other social factors including possibly one’s socioeconomic status. Gravlee assessed skin color in those whose blood pressure was measured by several different means. These means included: spectrophotometry which noted the pigments in the person’s skin, a self-assessment of the person’s skin color, and ascribed cultural consensus analysis of skin color. Although the spectrophotometry categorization of skin color, a difference in blood pressure was not noted between those whose blood pressure was measured, this was not true for the other two means of measuring racial classification. Both the self-assessed and ascribed cultural consensus modes of categorizing race noted that those who were categorized as black had higher blood pressure. Therefore, the racial categorization that a person identifies him or herself as and the racial categorization that society identifies a person as were shown to have an impact on that person’s blood pressure in this study.
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"Biological and Cultural Constructions of Race and its Effect on Racial Health Disparities".
Since there were no health disparities evident with the spectrophotometry mode of determining skin color category, one can assume that biological factors played little role in affecting a person’s blood pressure. However, the way in which that person and society identified the person by skin color could have impacted the person’s blood pressure in a number of ways. One of the main ways that it could have an impact on a person’s blood pressure is by impacting habits based on the groups to which the person identifies. Some groups, often those associated with lower socioeconomic status, may place less importance on eating a healthy diet. Even those who are not members of the lower socioeconomic status may still ascribe to the practices typically associated with that group. This may cause those who identify as or who are identified as black to place less importance on exercise and engage in unhealthy activities such as smoking. In addition, the way in which the person and society identifies the person based on race may cause the person to experience addition stress if the person identifies as or is often identified as black in that society.
- Gravlee, Clarence C., PhD, William W. Dressler, PhD, and H. Russell Bernard, PhD “Skin Color, Social Classification, and Blood Pressure in Southeastern Puerto Rico.” Am J Public Health. 2005 December; 95(12): 2191–2197.
