community violence as psychosocial stressorthe case of childhood asthma in boston社区暴力心理stressorthe在波士顿的儿童哮喘.pdfVIP

Psychology, 2010, 1: 27-34 27 doi:10.4236/psych.2010.11005 Published Online April 2010 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/psych) Community Violence as Psychosocial Stressor: The Case of Childhood Asthma in Boston 1,2 3,4 3 3 Gonzalo Bacigalupe , Takeo Fujiwara , Sabrina Selk , Meghan Woo 1Department of Counseling Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, USA; 2Department of Psychology, University of Deusto and Basque Foundation for Science, Ikerbasque, Bilbao, Spain; 3Department of Society and Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, America; 4Department of Psychosocial Medicine, National Center for Child Health Development, Tokyo, Japan. Email: gonzalo.bacigalupe@ Received February 3rd, 2010; revised February 20th, 2010; accepted February 20th, 2010. ABSTRACT Childhood asthma is a critical public health problem of urban centers in the United States and other industrialized na- tions. Population-based and laboratory research studies indicate that psychosocial stress differentially affects asthma expression. Witnessing or experiencing community violence is a psychosocial stressor that results in long-term biologi- cal changes that may in turn contribute to asthma morbidity. This is a review of the literature that examines the expo- sure to violence as a psychosocial stressor that is independently associated with asthma morbidity even after adjust- ment for income, housing, and other adverse life events. In addition to acting as a physiological trigger for the disease, community violence can also impact health behaviors and exposure to other unknown environmental risk factors. This connection leads the authors to suggest that reducing violence and the am