| Abstract: | Abstract Individuals confronted with poverty are at increased risk for disease and death due, in part, to the influence of macro social structures on differential exposure and heightened responsiveness to stress (Williams, 1990). For this reason, the influence of personality hardiness in moderating the stress-illness relationship in a biracial sample (African-American and European-American) of low-income women was examined. The effect of differential perceptions of the community on illness also was studied. Participants (100) completed rating scales, including Social Readjustment, Dispositional Resilience, Community Stress, and Seriousness of Illness. Hierarchical regression indicated that hardiness moderated the stress-illness relationship (p < .01), with high stress, low hardy women having higher levels of illness. In addition, race moderated the effect of stress, with high stress, Caucasian women having higher levels of illness. Group mean differences on community stress scores for low and high hardy women were obtained (p < .0001), but community stress was not associated with illness. Stress is linked to illness in low-income women; furthermore, both personality hardiness and being African-American buffer the effect of stress. |
