The influence of active coping and perceived stress on health disparities in a multi-ethnic low income sample

BMC Public Health

Table 2 Selected characteristics of study participants, by race/ethnicity.

	(n = 238)	(n = 378)	(n = 196)
Variable	White	Black	Hispanic	P value ^e
	%	%	%
Sex
Female	61.7	57.5	54.5	.305
Male	38.3	42.5	45.5
Socioeconomic Status ^a
Low (1–5)	42.5	49.9	56.6	.017
High (GT 5)	57.5	50.1	43.4
	Median	Median	Median
John Henryism (range 12–60) ^b	52 ^e	52 ^f	51 ^e	.011
	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)
Age	47.53(17.5) ^f	42.13(15.62) ^e	41.68(15.27) ^e	< .001
Self-Rated General Health (range 1–4) ^c	03.32(00.82) ^e	03.28(00.85) ^e	03.04(00.94) ^f	.001
Self-Rated Oral Health (range 1–4) ^c	03.13(00.91) ^e	03.03(00.96) ^e	02.90(00.98) ^f	.046
Perceived Discrimination (range 1–6) ^d	02.18(00.95) ^e	02.61(01.08)^f	02.23(01.07) ^e	< .001
Perceived Stress (3–40) ^d	22.58(05.87)^e	22.25(06.20) ^f	23.91(06.09) ^e	.010

^a Perceived SES in the United states based on respondents rating of how they compare to others in terms of income, education and job status. Higher scores indicate higher SES.
^b John Henryism Active Coping assesses predisposition to cope actively with psychosocial stressors in one's environment, higher scores indicated more active coping.
^c Based on participants' ratings of their general and oral health, higher scores indicated better health.
^d Higher scores indicate higher discrimination or higher perceived stress.
^e Analyses were chi square for categorical variables and ANOVA for continuous variables, different subscripts in row indicate a significant difference between groups for ANOVA analyses.

ISSN: 1471-2458