a cce s s H ea l t h N ews . n e t
M a rc h 2 0 2 6
Volume 11 | Issue No. 104
27
Bis pro essi di
odis repernam isi
untur apidus rem.
Nemolup tatur,
unte nonet, optatia
que prectatur
solorporem
velestiae.
Emporecture
nonse perion
esectotatur?"
Social injustice and health inequity run
in the same circle. Solutions to counteract
the physio-psychological weathering of
black people is more than complex.
Some of these conclusions were bizarre and far-fetched, like
the "hypertension gene" that followed slaves from Africa onto
slave ships and through the Middle Passage, infusing surviving
slaves with a propensity for salt retention, thus making them
more susceptible to hypertension. Geronimus said that notion
was easily debunked as American blacks and blacks from the
Caribbean both went through the Middle Passage, yet American
blacks have a far higher rate of hypertension.
In more recent years, research and genetic science
dispelled the DNA myth and embraced Geronimus'
weathering theory. In an NPR story, Making the Case that
Discrimination is Bad for Your Health, Geronimus explains
weathering as chronic stressors that afflict people of color
as [lifetime] stressors, often occurring in young adulthood
through middle age as opposed to earlier in life.
