Category: Racial Issues

Professor Ravinder Barn and Dr Vicki Harman from the Centre for Criminology and Sociology at Royal Holloway, University of London are carrying out research into white mothers of mixed-race children. It is part of a wider study of mixed-race children and young people that has spanned more than two decades.

Parenting as an activity has become the focus for much concern at a policy and academic level, and the experiences of white women mothering mixed-race children is also receiving considerable attention.

Globalisation and migration are playing key roles in determining the social and familial landscape of contemporary western societies. Government statistics in the UK, Canada and the USA point to the increasing racial and cultural heterogeneity and the growth of the mixed-race population. Although many of these families lead relatively trouble-free lives, there is evidence of vulnerability and disadvantage for others in a number of areas including education, health, social care and the criminal justice system.

New and ongoing research was presented at a one day inter-disciplinary research conference, organised by Professor Barn and Dr Harman to disseminate the findings to those working with inter-racial families and to determine the research agenda of the future.

"In the academic and popular discourse, there is now a concern that 'mixed families' have become problematised. White mothers in these settings are often subjected to a racialised critical social gaze in a way that their parenting is placed under scrutiny," says Professor Barn.

Dr Harman added: "Although the growing number of mixed relationships have been suggested to be evidence of a more tolerant society, social significance continues to be attached to relationships involving people from different ethnic backgrounds. White mothers of mixed-parentage children can find themselves dealing with racism directed at their children as well as facing social disapproval themselves."

The six papers presented at the event explored a range of areas including: the mixed-race landscape in the Canadian context, common themes amongst families experiencing social service involvement, the need to understand the social networks utilized by white mothers in mixed families and historical research looking at government archives to understand the ways in which white women's role in nation building had been marginalized.

Race matters on a neurological level when it comes to empathy for African-Americans in distress, according to a new Northwestern University study.

In a rare neuroscience look at racial minorities, the study shows that African-Americans showed greater empathy for African-Americans facing adversity — in this case for victims of Hurricane Katrina — than Caucasians demonstrated for Caucasian-Americans in pain.

"We found that everybody reported empathy toward the Hurricane Katrina victims," said Joan Y. Chiao, assistant professor of psychology and author of the study. "But African-Americans additionally showed greater empathic response to other African-Americans in emotional pain."

The more African-Americans identified as African-American the more likely they were to show greater empathic preference for African-Americans, the study showed.

Initially, Chiao thought that both African-Americans and Caucasian-Americans would either show no pattern of in-group bias or both show some sort of preference.

The take-home point to Chiao: our ability to identify with another person dramatically changes how much we can feel the pain of another and how much we're willing to help them.

"It's just that feeling of that person is like me, or that person is similar to me," she said. "That experience can really lead to what we're calling 'extraordinary empathy and altruistic motivation.' It's empathy and altruistic motivation above and beyond what you would do for another human."

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the study included an equal number of African-American and Caucasian-American study participants. They were shown pictures depicting either African-American or Caucasian-American individuals in a painful (i.e. in the midst of a natural disaster) or neutral (attending an outdoor picnic).

"We think this is really interesting because it suggests mechanisms by which we can enhance our empathy and altruistic motivation simply by finding ways in which we have commonality across individuals and across groups," Chiao said.

Chiao, who works at one of only two labs in the world dedicated to cultural and social neuroscience, is particularly interested in how social identities related to gender or race modulate the biological process underlying feeling and reason. (The Web address for the Social and Cultural Neuroscience Lab at Northwestern is http://culturalneuro.psych.northwestern.edu/Lab_Website/Welcome.html).

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Journal Reference:

1. Vani A. Mathur, Tokiko Harada, Trixie Lipke, Joan Y. Chiao. Neural basis of extraordinary empathy and altruistic motivation. NeuroImage, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.03.025

The human brain fires differently when dealing with people outside of one's own race, according to new research out of the University of Toronto Scarborough.

This research, conducted by social neuroscientists at University of Toronto-Scarborough, explored the sensitivity of the "mirror-neuron-system" to race and ethnicity. The researchers had study participants view a series of videos while hooked up to electroencephalogram (EEG) machines. The participants — all white — watched simple videos in which men of different races picked up a glass and took a sip of water. They watched white, black, South Asian and East Asian men perform the task.

Typically, when people observe others perform a simple task, their motor cortex region fires similarly to when they are performing the task themselves. However, the U of T research team, led by PhD student Jennifer Gutsell and Assistant Professor Dr. Michael Inzlicht, found that participants' motor cortex was significantly less likely to fire when they watched the visible minority men perform the simple task. In some cases when participants watched the non-white men performing the task, their brains actually registered as little activity as when they watched a blank screen.

"Previous research shows people are less likely to feel connected to people outside their own ethnic groups, and we wanted to know why," says Gutsell. "What we found is that there is a basic difference in the way peoples' brains react to those from other ethnic backgrounds. Observing someone of a different race produced significantly less motor-cortex activity than observing a person of one's own race. In other words, people were less likely to mentally simulate the actions of other-race than same-race people"

The trend was even more pronounced for participants who scored high on a test measuring subtle racism, says Gutsell.

"The so-called mirror-neuron-system is thought to be an important building block for empathy by allowing people to 'mirror' other people's actions and emotions; our research indicates that this basic building block is less reactive to people who belong to a different race than you," says Inzlicht.

However, the team says cognitive perspective taking exercises, for example, can increase empathy and understanding, thereby offering hope to reduce prejudice. Gutsell and Inzlicht are now investigating if this form of perspective-taking can have measurable effects in the brain.

The team's findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jennifer N. Gutsell, Michael Inzlicht. Empathy constrained: Prejudice predicts reduced mental simulation of actions during observation of outgroups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.03.011

— A new study from the Journal of Marriage and Family reveals that teenagers who have experienced several family changes are more likely to engage in delinquent behaviour, become sexually active early, or become parents outside of marriage, than kids who have always lived in the same family arrangement (whether with married parents or a single parent).

The findings show that white adolescents, compared to their African-American peers, are more likely to become sexually active earlier, and experience a nonmarital birth.

In turn, adolescents who engage in delinquent behaviour or become unmarried parents are more likely to leave school earlier, have less success in the workplace, and are less likely to form stable romantic relationships than their peers.

The researchers weigh these familial pressures with outside factors, seeing how both work to form the teen's long-term identity. The absence of quality relationships with other adults and a lack of connection to one's neighbourhood, school, or community can directly affect the teen's social choices and consequences.

For African-American adolescents, there is evidence that economic hardship can dampen the trauma caused by changes in the family.

Study author Paula Fomby says, "We were interested in what distinguished white teenagers from black teenagers, and entertained various explanations offered by other research and theories. Our study reveals two findings. One, the sheer number of adults that are around to give teenagers or their parents support varies by ethnic or racial group. Additionally, adjustment to economic hardship trumps the growing pains introduced by other family changes such as divorce or remarriage."

The researchers followed the lives of approximately 8,000 American teenagers from their adolescence in the mid-90s to young adulthood (over the course of seven years). The teenagers answered questions about their school activities, illegal behaviour, and romantic lives. Their parents provided information about their own relationship histories..

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Journal Reference:

1. Paula Fomby, Stefanie Mollborn, Christie A. Sennott. Race/Ethnic Differences in Effects of Family Instability on Adolescents' Risk Behavior. Journal of Marriage and Family, 2010; 72 (2): 234 DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00696.x

 A new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Children's Hospital Boston has found that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals who have ever had a same-sex sex partner are one-and-a-half to two times as likely to experience violent events, especially in childhood, than the general population and have double the risk of experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a consequence of these events. It is the first study to directly link higher rates of PTSD in those four groups (classified as sexual minorities) to greater violence exposure.

The research appears online and in an upcoming print issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Traumatic events like active combat, child maltreatment, interpersonal violence, or unexpected death of a loved one can lead to PTSD, a mental illness which is characterized by distressing memories of the traumatic event, avoidance of objects, places, or people associated with the event, emotional numbing and an increased sense of vigilance. PTSD in turn can lead to drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and difficulties with relationships and employment if it goes untreated. The lifetime risk of PTSD in the general population is about 4% for men and 10% for women. Among sexual minority adults, the risk of PTSD is doubled — over 9% for men and 20% for women.

One of the most important lessons from this study, said lead author Andrea Roberts, a postdoctoral fellow in epidemiology at HSPH, is that "medical professionals need to be aware that a high percentage of patients with minority sexual orientation may have been victims of interpersonal violence and may benefit from follow-up care to cope with the aftermath of violent victimization."

"Our study documents that profound sexual orientation disparities exist in exposure to violence and other traumatic events beginning in childhood," said senior author Karestan Koenen, associate professor of society, human development and health at HSPH. "Something about our society puts individuals with minority sexual orientations at high risk for victimization. This is a major public health problem that needs to be addressed."

This study used data from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. Respondents in the study were asked not only about how they classify their sexual orientation, but also about their sexual behavior and feelings of sexual attraction. This enabled the researchers to analyze in more detail to discover that heterosexuals with same-sex attractions but no same-sex sex partners were not at elevated risk of violence or PTSD. This is possibly because heterosexual individuals who do not act on their homosexual attractions may not face as much stigma, the authors suggest.

Exposure to multiple traumatic events at a young age may be contributing to the increased rates of PTSD among sexual minorities: 45% of sexual minority women and 28% of sexual minority men experienced violence or abuse in childhood, whereas 21% of women and 20% of men in the general population experience violence or abuse in childhood. The researchers suggest five mechanisms for the increased risk of victimization and PTSD among sexual minorities:

• Hate crimes–almost one-third of sexual minority adults in the U.S. report being victims of a hate crime
• Gender non-conforming behavior in childhood, which increases risk of being bullied and victimized
• Social isolation and discrimination due to sexual minority orientation
• Elevated risk-taking behavior stemming from social isolation and perceived stigma
• Limited access to mental health care

The authors urge that health care providers and families be aware that sexual minorities face a greater risk of violence and PTSD and may have a history of trauma that should be addressed before it becomes mentally debilitating.

This study was supported by the Harvard Training Program in Psychiatric Genetics and Translational Research, the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.

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Journal Reference:

1. Andrea L. Roberts, S. Bryn Austin, Heather L. Corliss, Ashley K. Vandermorris, Karestan C. Koenen. Pervasive Trauma Exposure Among US Sexual Orientation Minority Adults and Risk of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. American Journal of Public Health, 2010; DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2009.168971

 African-American men with chronic pain related to an accident, injury, illness, surgery or other causes were more likely to experience depression, affective distress and disability than white men with chronic pain, according to a new study by the University of Michigan Health System.

The persistent pain black men experienced was more severe which might lead to greater disability, but the study by U-M researchers give clues to other factors that drive the downward spiral to depression and disability.

The findings are reported in the April issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association and part of a body of work developed by U-M pain medicine physician and anesthesiologist Carmen R. Green, M.D., on racial disparities in the pain experience.

Through previous research Green has shown that black women are more severely impacted by chronic pain, and in general minorities have a harder time filling prescriptions for painkillers in their local pharmacies.

The latest study shows black men with chronic pain are in poorer overall health than white men and are at higher risk for not being able to take care of themselves or their families.

The study suggests the reasons for the worse outcomes among black men vary from their lower marriage rates to engagement in litigation related to their pain.

Green, a professor of anesthesiology and obstetrics and gynecology, and associate professor of health management and policy at the U-M, worked with Tamara Hart-Johnson, M.S., senior research associate, to create one of the most detailed picture yet of chronic pain's effect on the health of black men.

"Gender related differences and disparities are known. However, most studies designed to examine racial and ethnic disparities ignore gender, while those exploring gender focus primarily on a single gender, most often women," Green says.

More than 1,600 men were part of the research study and 6 percent were black men. Physical and personal characteristics about the men were collected with the Pain Assessment Inventory Narrative, the McGill Pain Questionnaire and other clinical surveys to assess pain.

Researchers analyzed a model based on health and lifestyle factors such as education, income, marital status, litigation, substance use and high blood pressure to determine which would lead to better or worse outcomes for men with chronic pain.

Behavioral factors gave a mixed picture. Seemingly unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol and caffeine use, which black men reported less often, were associated with better outcomes. But alcohol and caffeine are often social substances, authors say, and using either may indicate that men felt better and may still be involved in social activities.

Black race emerged as a predictor of lower neighborhood income, less education and lower marriage rates.

Litigation and high blood pressure were linked with worse health outcomes, and men who were married had fewer depressive symptoms and post traumatic stress disorder. But black men were less likely to be married, had higher percentages of high blood pressure and were more likely to have ongoing legal proceedings related to their pain status compared to white men.

Some factors are modifiable such as controlling high blood pressure, but authors say the study showing distinct racial differences points to the need for using a multidisciplinary and culturally appropriate approach to caring for black men with chronic pain.

"We revealed that black men are at increased risk for the worst consequences of chronic pain and larger studies are needed to examine the pain experience in this extremely understudied population," Green says.

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Journal Reference:

1. Carmen R. Green, Tamera Hart-Johnson. The Impact of Chronic Pain on the Health of Black and White Men. Journal of the National Medical Association, 2010; 102 (4): 321-331

Children with the genetic condition known as Williams syndrome have unusually friendly natures because they lack the sense of fear that the rest of us feel in many social situations. Now, a study reported in the April 13th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, suggests that children with Williams Syndrome are missing something else the rest of us have from a very tender age: the proclivity to stereotype others based on their race.

The findings support the notion that social fear is at the root of racial stereotypes. The researchers say the results might also aid in the development of interventions designed to reduce discriminatory attitudes and behavior towards vulnerable or marginalized groups of society.

"This is the first study to report the absence of racial stereotypes in any human population," said Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim/University of Heidelberg, who coauthored the paper with Andreia Santos and Christine Deruelle of the Mediterranean Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Marseille.

Previous studies have shown that stereotypes are found ubiquitously in typically developing children — as early as age 3 — as they are in adults, Meyer-Lindenberg explained. Even children with autism display racial stereotypes, despite profound difficulties in daily social interaction and a general failure to show adapted social knowledge.

In their study, the researchers showed children a series of vignettes with people differing in race or gender and asked the children to assign positive or negative features to those pictured. Typical children made strongly stereotypical assignments both for sex roles and for race, confirming the results of previous studies. On the other hand, children with Williams syndrome showed no evidence for racial bias.

"The unique hypersociable profile of individuals with Williams syndrome often leads them to consider that everybody in the world is their friend," Meyer-Lindenberg said. "In previous work, we have shown that processing of social threat is deficient in people with the syndrome. Based on this, we suspected that they would not show a particular preference for own-race versus other-race characters. The finding that racial stereotypes in children with Williams syndrome were completely absent was nevertheless surprising in its degree."

The children with Williams syndrome did make stereotypical sex role assignments just like normal children. That finding suggests that different forms of stereotyping arise from different brain mechanisms, the researchers say, and that those mechanisms are selectively affected in some way by the genetic alteration that causes Williams syndrome (the loss of about 26 genes on chromosome 7).

The researchers include Andreia Santos, University of Heidelberg/Medical Faculty Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany, Mediterranean Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, CNRS, Marseille, France, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, University of Heidelberg/Medical Faculty Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany, & Christine Deruelle, Mediterranean Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, CNRS, Marseille, France.

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Journal Reference:

1. Andreia Santos, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Christine Deruelle. Absence of racial, but not gender, stereotyping in Williams syndrome children. Current Biology, 2010; 20 (7): R307-R308 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.02.009

The way people choose to cope with personal experiences of racism influences the distress caused by the encounter, according to a new study of Filipino-American men and women. Published today in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, the study finds that denying or ignoring racial discrimination leads to greater psychological distress, including anxiety and depression, and lowers self-esteem.

"Some coping methods are healthier than others for dealing with everyday racism," said Alvin Alvarez, professor of counseling at San Francisco State University. "We found that when people deny or trivialize racist encounters, they can actually make themselves feel worse, amplifying the distress caused by the incident."

The study focused on 'everyday racism' — subtle, commonplace forms of discrimination, such as being ignored, ridiculed or treated differently. "These are incidents that may seem innocent and small, but cumulatively they can have a powerful impact on an individual's mental health," Alvarez said. "Trying to ignore these insidious incidents could become taxing and debilitating over time, chipping away at a person's spirit."

Alvarez surveyed 199 Filipino-American adults, both men and women, in the San Francisco Bay Area and found that 99 percent of participants had experienced at least one incident of everyday racism in the last year.

The study found that for men, dealing with racism in an active way, such as reporting incidents to authorities or challenging the perpetrator, was associated with decreased distress and increased self esteem. "It is possible that for men, coming up with a plan to respond to racism fosters a 'you can do it' attitude, a sense of empowerment that buffers against distress and feelings of victimhood," Alvarez said.

Coping by confiding in friends and family was found to increase men's psychological distress and lower their self-esteem. The authors believe this surprising finding suggests that seeking social support may not always be helpful — particularly if talking about racism implies that the situation is unchangeable or if it causes a person distress by having to relive difficult experiences.

For women, although the study found that ignoring racism results in increased distress, no significant correlation was found between active coping methods or confiding in others and psychological distress.

"What's striking is we found that racism is still happening to Filipinos," Alvarez said. "Therapists need to look beyond the frequent portrayal of Asian Americans as model minorities and help clients assess what their best coping strategy could be, depending on their resources, what's feasible and who they could turn to for support."

The authors caution that what makes a healthy coping mechanism is influenced by such factors as socioeconomic status, age, English language capacity and length of residency in the U.S.

The study is published in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology. In addition to Alvarez, the study was co-authored by Linda Juang, associate professor of psychology at San Francisco State University.

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Journal Reference:

1. Alvin Alvarez, Linda Juang. Filipino Americans and Racism: A Multiple Mediation Model of Coping. Journal of Counseling Psychology, April 2010;

Blacks hospitalized with the most common type of stroke are less likely than white or Hispanic patients to receive evidence-based stroke care, according to a new study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

But this disparity in care improved over time at hospitals participating in the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke quality improvement program, researchers said.

"Previous reports that have identified variances in the quality of care and outcomes among different racial and ethnic groups have been limited in size, have not looked at trends over time and have had inconsistent findings," said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., lead author of the study and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. "But it's critical to recognize and understand the reasons for these differences in treatment patterns and outcomes so we can develop the strategies needed to eliminate them."

Schwamm and colleagues analyzed in-hospital deaths and examined how frequently 397,257 black, white and Hispanic ischemic stroke patients (average age 71) received seven evidence-based stroke care measures at 1,181 hospitals participating in the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program between 2003 to 2008.

After adjusting for patient and hospital characteristics, the researchers found that Hispanic patients received care similar to their white counterparts on most of the seven measures. Black patients, however, were less likely than white or Hispanic patients to receive most of the quality measures:

• Blacks were 16 percent less likely than whites to receive the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) and to receive anticoagulants for atrial fibrillation.
• Blacks were 12 percent less likely than whites to receive deep vein thrombosis prevention and to be discharged with anti-clotting medications.
• Blacks were 3 percent less likely than whites to receive early anti-clotting medications.
• Blacks were 9 percent less likely than whites to receive cholesterol-lowering therapy.
• Blacks were 15 percent less likely than whites and Hispanics were 18 percent less likely than whites to receive smoking cessation counseling.
• Overall, blacks were 10 percent less likely than whites to receive "defect free care," which is defined as the proportion of patients who receive all of the interventions for which they are eligible.

"An interesting finding is that, despite being less likely to receive the interventions, black patients were less likely to die in the hospital than whites or Hispanics," said Schwamm, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee. "We suspect that's because black patients are more likely to have stroke at younger ages and present with less severe strokes than the other groups."

Researchers also found racial and ethnic differences in stroke-related outcomes at discharge:

• Black (47.9 percent) and Hispanic (52.6 percent) patients were more likely to be discharged to home compared to white patients (44.0 percent), who were more likely to be discharged to a skilled nursing facility compared to black and Hispanic patients.
• Black (4.37 percent) and Hispanic (4.90 percent) patients were less likely than white patients (6.06 percent) to die in the hospital.
• Black (6.60 days) and Hispanic (6.34 days) patients had longer hospital stays than whites (5.49 days).

During the study, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke hospitals significantly improved the quality of stroke care for patients in all three groups, Schwamm said.

"These findings tell us that a focused, systematic quality improvement intervention, such as this, can improve care, regardless of race and ethnicity," he said. "What remains is to identify the causes of these differences in care among ethnic groups so we can develop strategies to eliminate that small but persistent disparity."

Limitations of the study are that participation in Get With The Guidelines-Stroke is voluntary and hospitals that participate are more likely to be larger teaching institutions with a strong interest in stroke care and quality improvement, Schwamm said. So the findings may not represent care at all U.S. hospitals.

Furthermore, reliable information about stroke severity is not always captured in patients' records; so the authors said they're cautious in their conclusions that relate to in-patient death.

Co-authors are Mathew J. Reeves, Ph.D.; Wenqin Pan, Ph.D.; Eric E. Smith, M.D., M.P.H.; Michael R. Frankel, M.D.; DaiWai Olson, Ph.D., R.N.; Xin Zhao, M.S.; Eric Peterson, M.D., M.P.H.; and Gregg C. Fonarow, M.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

Get With The Guidelines-Stroke is supported in part by unrestricted educational grants from Pfizer, Inc. and the Merck-Schering Plough Partnership.

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Journal Reference:

1. Lee H. Schwamm, Mathew J. Reeves, Wenqin Pan, Eric E. Smith, Michael R. Frankel, DaiWai Olson, Xin Zhao, Eric Peterson, and Gregg C. Fonarow. Race/Ethnicity, Quality of Care, and Outcomes in Ischemic Stroke. Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 2010; DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.881490

— The 2010 Sleep in America poll by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) reveals significant differences in the sleep habits and attitudes of Asians, Blacks/African-Americans, Hispanics and Whites. It is the first poll to examine sleep among these four ethnic groups.

NSF's Sleep in America poll found that more than three-fourths of respondents from each ethnic group agree that poor sleep is associated with health problems (76-83%). These new findings echo lessons learned by former President Bill Clinton who recently admitted that he has adopted a new lifestyle regimen to sleep seven or more hours on the advice of his doctors.

The poll also shows that all groups report disturbingly similar experiences missing work or family functions because they were too sleepy (19-24%). Among married people or couples living together, all ethnic groups report being too tired for sex frequently (21- 26% of the time).

"As the leading voice of sleep health, we are committed to better understanding people's sleep needs," says David Cloud, CEO of the National Sleep Foundation. "By exploring ethnic and family sleep practices we have gained new insight into why we sleep the way we do."

Blacks/African-Americans report the busiest bedtime routines.

Blacks/African-Americans are the most likely to report performing activities in the hour before going to bed every night or almost every night, specifically watching TV (75%) and/or praying or doing another religious practice (71%). Whether on weekdays/workdays or non-workdays/weekends, Blacks/African-Americans spend much more time in bed without sleeping than the other ethnic groups (54 minutes on weekdays/workdays and 71 minutes on non-workdays/weekends).

• Blacks/African-Americans and Hispanics (10% each) are ten times more likely to report having sex every night than Asians (1%) and 2.5 times more likely than Whites (4%).
• Most Blacks/African-Americans report praying every night (71%); more than four times the reported frequency of Asians (18%), twice the rate of Whites (32%) and 1.5 times the rate of Hispanics (45%).
• Blacks/African-Americans (17%) and Asians (16%) are more likely than Whites (9%) and Hispanics (13%) to report doing job-related work in the hour before bed, among those employed.
• Blacks/African-Americans report losing sleep every night over personal financial concerns (12%) and employment concerns (10%) at a higher rate than Whites (6% and 7%) or Asians (1% and 4%). Hispanics are almost equally concerned each night about these two issues (11% and 9%, respectively).

"The hour before bed is an important time to relax and wind-down before going to sleep," says Thomas J. Balkin, Ph.D., Chairman of the National Sleep Foundation. "For those who are having problems sleeping, it's a good idea to consider whether your bedtime routines may be too alerting."

Asians report getting the best sleep, report the least amount of sleep problems and infrequent use of sleep aids.

Asians are the most likely ethnic group (84%) to say that they had a good night's sleep at least a few nights or more a week. In addition, Asians are about half as likely (14%) to discuss their sleep issues with a healthcare professional, and are half as likely (10%) to report having been diagnosed with a sleep disorder. Asians are the least likely to report using sleep medication at least a few nights a week (5% versus 13% Whites, 9% Blacks/African-Americans and 8% Hispanics).

• Asians are the least likely (9%) to say that they "rarely" or "never" have a good night's sleep, compared with 20% of Whites, 18% of Blacks/African-Americans and 14% of Hispanics.
• The poll shows that Asians are more than twice as likely to use the Internet every night in comparison to any other group (51% versus 22% Whites, 20% Blacks/African-Americans, 20% Hispanics). They are also the least likely to watch TV an hour before sleep (52% versus 64% Whites, 72% Hispanics and 75% Blacks/African-Americans).
• Asians report the use of herbal and alternative therapies at rates similar to Hispanics (2% each), but less than Whites (4%).
• Asians report the lowest rates of losing sleep due to personal financial concerns at least a few nights a week (9% versus 22% Hispanics, 20% Whites and 19% Blacks/African-Americans).

While Blacks/African-Americans report the least amount of sleep, they also say they need less sleep. Blacks/African-Americans report getting the least amount of sleep on workdays/weekdays (6 hours and 14 minutes). Interestingly, they also say that they need only 7 hours and 5 minutes of sleep each night to perform at their best during the day, which is significantly less sleep than Asians and Hispanics (7 hours and 29 minutes each).

• Blacks/African-Americans report getting an average of 34 minutes less sleep on a work night/weeknight than Asians and 38 minutes less than Whites.

"The finding that Blacks/African-Americans say they need less sleep and get less sleep is instructive for public health professionals," says Jose S. Loredo, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. "Their total sleep time and attitudes regarding sleep may be associated with Blacks/African-Americans' higher rates of sleep apnea, hypertension and diabetes and provide sleep-related insight into how to improve awareness and education programs and, very importantly, how to improve therapy compliance rates."

Hispanics are the most likely to say they are kept awake by financial, employment, personal relationship and/or health-related concerns.

Overall, at least one-third of Hispanics (38%) and Blacks/African-Americans (33%) report that any of these concerns disturb their sleep at least a few nights a week, compared to about one-fourth of Whites (28%) and/or Asians (25%).

• Moreover, about two in ten Hispanics (19%) and Blacks/African-Americans (19%) say their sleep is disturbed every night or almost every night by at least one of these concerns.
• Hispanics (16%) are more likely than Blacks/African-Americans (12%), Asians (9%) and Whites (7%) to say that health-related concerns have disturbed their sleep at least a few nights a week.

"So many people are suffering because of economic uncertainty," says Martica Hall, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. "If you find yourself lying awake worrying, write a note to yourself to work on these issues the next day so you can dismiss those ideas at bed time. Consider using relaxation techniques and focus on calming activities and thoughts. If your problems persist, you may want to seek out a sleep professional."

Whites are the most likely to report sleeping with their pets and/or their significant other/spouse. Among those married or partnered, Whites are much more likely (14%) than the other ethnic groups (2% each) to say they usually sleep with a pet.

• Among those married or partnered, 90% of Whites report that they sleep with their significant other compared to 84% of Blacks/African-Americans, 76% of Hispanics and 67% of Asians.
• Interestingly, among all respondents, Whites are the least likely to say they sleep alone (21% versus 41% Blacks/African-Americans, 37% Asians and 31% Hispanics.)

Among those married or partnered respondents with children, Asians (28%) and Hispanics (22%) are the most likely to report that they sleep in the same room with their children (compared to 15% of Blacks/African-Americans and 8% of Whites).*

"Other studies support the findings that co-sleeping with children is prevalent with Asians," says Sonia Ancoli-Israel, Ph.D., chair of the National Sleep Foundation's Sleep in America Poll Task Force. "If you are having trouble sleeping, and you sleep with your spouse, your child, your pet or all three, remember that may be contributing to sleep disturbances that prevent you from getting a good night's sleep."

*Bed sharing/co-sleeping is a complex and controversial practice. This study did not specifically examine the issue of sleeping with infants, nor does the National Sleep Foundation wish to have these results misconstrued to suggest a position on the practice. Parental counseling about infant sleep environments is strongly suggested.

Sleep disorder diagnosis is uneven among the four ethnic groups.

The 2010 poll found that sleep disorders continue to be very common among the adults surveyed, with specific disorders occurring at different frequency among the four groups.

• Whites report the highest rate of diagnosis for insomnia (10%), and Blacks/African-Americans have the highest rate of diagnosed sleep apnea (14%) among the four groups.
• Among those experiencing sleep problems, Whites are the most likely to report using over-the-counter sleep aids at least a few nights a week (7%). Blacks/African-Americans are almost twice as likely to report taking medications prescribed by a doctor (7%) rather than over-the-counter sleep aids (3%). Asians are the least likely to report using any form of sleep medication (5%).

"If you are experiencing problems sleeping," says Balkin, "Take charge of your own sleep. You should critically examine your bedtime routines and pre-sleep activities and make time to ensure your bedroom is conducive to your sleep comfort. You will spend approximately a third of your life in bed, so it's worth it to take time to make sure your bed and bedtime routine are right for you. If you continue having problems sleeping for more than a few weeks, it's advisable to speak with your healthcare professional."

Ethnic groups seek help for sleep problems differently.

When experiencing a specific sleep problem, Blacks/African-Americans say they are more likely to speak with their doctor (16%) or research online (10%) than to get recommendations from friends or family (4%).

• Asians (15%) are the most likely to say they get advice from family and friends.
• Respondents were also asked if their healthcare professional or doctor had ever asked them about their sleep during a routine visit. At least four in ten Whites (48%), Blacks/African-Americans (42%) and Hispanics (40%) say yes; however, only 28% of Asians had been asked about sleep by their doctor.

"We are making progress with physicians and patients discussing sleep issues in regular office visits," says Cloud. "But we still have a lot of work to do to make sleep a routine part of every physician-patient interaction."

Adds David G. Davila, MD, Medical Director of the Baptist Health Sleep Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, "Sleep is a vital sign for overall health, therefore, discussing sleep problems should be an important part of health check ups for doctors and patients, especially since sleep disorders can affect many other medical conditions."