Black women exposed to racism more likely to get heart disease

WASHINGTON, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Black women who had experienced discrimination in employment, housing and their interactions with police were 26 percent more likely to develop heart disease than those who had not gone through such structural racism, U.S. News &World Report said on Thursday, citing a new study.

Structural racism refers to the ways that a society fosters racial discrimination through housing, education, employment, health care and criminal justice systems, it noted.

"Chronic psychosocial stressors such as racism increase levels of inflammation, blood pressure and other risks for heart disease," study author Shanshan Sheehy, assistant professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian &Avedisian School of Medicine, was quoted as saying.