Answer to Question 1
The authors of the article cited by the text reject the hypothesis that race alone could be a specific cause for the ongoing health problems that affect minority groups such as African Americans. They look to allostatic load as a concept that can be used to demonstrate how environmental stressors, including psychosocial stressors, can lead to a cumulative physiological toll on the body. In their view, allostatic load helps capture the cumulative wear and tear on the body that results from repeated exposures to stressful experiences, whether physical or psychosocial, and helps explain the impact of factors such as discrimination and economic and emotional deprivation on health. They appear to reject the hypothesis that origins rooted in slavery could affect the health outcomes of future generations.
Answer to Question 2
Evidence increasingly suggests a relationship between stressful environmental and psychosocial factors and the risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. Impaired immunity due to stress makes the body more susceptible to many diseases, including infections and disorders of the immune system itself, such as the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis. The text lists a large number of other disease conditions associated with stress, including cancer, diabetes, stroke, and ulcers.
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