A recent body of literature connects Islamophobia to negative health outcomes of Muslim communities facing discrimination. These perspectives draw on previous works around the impacts of racism on health to highlight the negative impacts of stigmatized Muslim identities on the mental and physical health of Muslims, which ultimately result in health disparities. Namely, key contributions highlight the way Islamophobia increases stress-related outcomes such as depression, anxiety, paranoia, and fear, all of which impact the overall well-being of Muslim communities in the US. Further, key works focus on how Islamophobia manifests within healthcare settings, and the way in which negative experiences limit the way Muslims navigate and access the healthcare systems. There is a need for further research in this area in order to capture the multiple dimensions of Islamophobia and Muslim identity, as well as understand the relationship between Islamophobia and health at the structural level. An example of such work could be an investigation into the impacts of negative media coverage on the health outcomes of American Muslims. These readings highlight the opportunity for researchers to examine the health effects of Islamophobia, and the intersection of various forms of discrimination, such as gender, race, and class.
Annotations
Frequently cited
Rippy AE, Newman E. Perceived religious discrimination and its relationship to anxiety and paranoia among Muslim Americans. Journal of Muslim Mental Health 1, no. 1 (2006):5–20.
In this article, Alyssa Rippy and Elana Newman from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma attempt to provide an early documentation of the effects of perceived discrimination on the mental health of Muslim Americans following the 9/11 attacks. The analysis is based on 152 questionnaire responses of Muslims living in Oklahoma in 2005, including both first- and second-generation Muslims across a wide range of ethnic groups. This article provides an overview of the background literature on the way perceptions of discrimination differ among individuals as well as on the effects of discrimination and hate crimes on the mental health of subjected minorities. In highlighting the lack of research on these connections for the US Muslim community, the authors critically examine perceived discrimination and its association with subclinical paranoia and anxiety among their Muslim respondents. Results of the survey presented a statistically significant relationship between perceived religious discrimination and subclinical paranoia; however, perceived discrimination and anxiety were not related. The authors suggest that perceived discrimination among Muslim Americans is related to the expression of increased vigilance and suspicion, which could lead to social withdrawal or isolation within their group. This could also be interpreted as avoidance or escape from discriminatory social situations or negative social interactions. This vigilance was reflected on a group level, where participants reported an increased perception of societal discrimination since the attacks of 9/11 compared to a moderate perception of an increase of personal discrimination faced individually. This early contribution to Islamophobia and health verifies that Muslims face race-related stress, which produces aversive psychological symptoms. Overall, these findings emphasize the negative impacts of perceived discrimination on Muslims in America including increased paranoia, social withdrawal, or isolation from one’s racial, religious, or ethnic group.
Critical Insight
Samari, Goleen. "Islamophobia and Public Health in the United States." American Journal of Public Health 106, no. 11 (2016): 1920-25.
In this article, Goleen Samari, a postdoctoral fellow with the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, calls for a public health perspective on the implications of Islamophobic discrimination on the physical health of stigmatized Muslim Americans. The article contextualizes this argument through an overview of the expanding climate of Islamophobia in the US, followed by a connection between experiences of religious and racial discrimination among Muslim Americans to health disparities. Samari does so by problematizing the negative influence of stigma and discrimination on health via the disruption of several systems, including individual (such as stress reactivity and stereotype threat), interpersonal (such as interpersonal relationships) and structural (institutional policies and media coverage) processes that are known determinants of health. Presenting Islamophobia as an opportunity to examine the intersecting health effects of various forms of discrimination, Samari urges public health researchers to place Islamophobia on the discrimination and health research agenda. She particularly encourages structural-level research on the impacts of Islamophobia and its various “moderators/mediators” such as race, ethnicity, and visible religiosity on the physical and mental health of Muslim Americans. The article proposes a range of research directions for those interested in the link between Islamophobia and the social determinants of health. This includes more research on Islamophobia and physical health, further analysis of racial and non-racial discrimination, the effects of moderators and mediators for stigma, discrimination and health, as well as a deeper understanding of the way structural stigma impacts Islamophobia and health. Overall, Samari stresses that public health research should explore the multilevel and multidimensional pathways linking Islamophobia to population physical and mental health.
Recent Perspectives
Martin, Mary Brigid. "Perceived discrimination of Muslims in health care." Journal of Muslim Mental Health 9, no. 2 (2015): 41-69.
In this article, Mary Brigid Martin, a certified Transcultural Nurse and Nurse Educator, explores the crossover of anti-Muslim discrimination from society to the healthcare setting. This paper therefore aims to ascertain the extent of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination in US healthcare settings and the types of discriminatory behaviors Muslims report in the American healthcare setting. Additionally, the author aims to uncover care preferences among Muslim Americans that may inform culturally congruent care practices and to test a newly developed instrument designed to measure anti-Muslim discrimination in the healthcare setting. The main findings of the article are drawn from an online survey that was administered from January to April 2012 with 227 self-identifying Muslims living in the US who had reported a healthcare encounter since 9/11. The survey included a new fifteen-item tool, the Health Care Discrimination Scale (HCDS), which measures anti-Muslim discrimination across items like healthcare cultural safety, patient perception of fair treatment, and respect for identity, in addition to another set of scales allocated to patient/family cultural needs. Overall, the findings of this study reflected that anti-Muslim discrimination crosses over from society to the healthcare setting in the United States. Nearly one-third of subjects perceived that they were discriminated against when accessing healthcare services. Being excluded or ignored was the most frequently reported type of discrimination, followed by problems related to the use of Muslim clothing, offensive or insensitive verbal remarks, and problems related to Islamic holidays, prayer rituals, and physical assault, respectively. Interestingly, reported perceptions of anti-Muslim discrimination were found to be higher after the Boston Marathon Bombings, which is connected to an overall increase in attacks against Muslims following media reports of terror attacks supposedly perpetrated by Muslims. In specifying the implications of these findings for practice, education, policy, and future research, this article provides a significant perspective on how Islamophobia is being experienced in the healthcare space by Muslim patients.
Reading List
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Aboul-Enein, Basil H. "The cultural gap delivering health care services to Arab American populations in the United States." Journal of Cultural Diversity 17, no. 1 (2010): 20-23.
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Abu-Ras, Wahiba, and Soleman H. Abu-Bader. "The impact of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the well-being of Arab Americans in New York City." Journal of Muslim Mental Health 3, no. 2 (2008): 217–239.
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Abu-Ras, Wahiba, and Zulema E. Suarez. "Muslim men and women’s perception of discrimination, hate crimes, and PTSD symptoms post 9/11." Traumatology 15, no. 3 (2009): 48-63.
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Alankar, Aparna. "How Does Islamophobia Affect the US Healthcare System?”. Medical Dialogue Review (2017).
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Alcalá, Héctor E., Mienah Zulfacar Sharif, and Goleen Samari. "Social determinants of health, violent radicalization, and terrorism: a public health perspective." Health equity 1, no. 1 (2017): 87-95.
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Amer, Mona M., and Anisan Bagasra. "Psychological Research with Muslim Americans in the Age of Islamophobia: Trends, Challenges, and Recommendations." American Psychologist 68, no. 3 (2013): 134-44.
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Amer, Mona, and Joseph Hovey. "Anxiety and Depression in a Post-September 11 Sample of Arabs in the USA." Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology 47, no. 3 (2012): 409-18.
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Aroian, Karen, Nizam Uddin, and Darshana Ullah. "Stress, social support, and depression in Arab Muslim immigrant women in the Detroit area of the USA." In: Women’s Mental Health: Resistance and Resilience in Community and Society, edited by Khanlou, Nazilla and Pilkington, Beryl F. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing (2015): 69–81
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Bird, Lance D., Mona M. Amer, Elizabeth D. Barnett, and Linda L. Barnes. "Muslim Patients and Health Disparities in the Uk and the Us." Archives of Disease in Childhood 92, no. 10 (2007): 922.
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Budhwani, Henna, and Kristine R. Hearld. "Muslim women's experiences with stigma, abuse, and depression: results of a sample study conducted in the United States." Journal of Women's Health 26, no 5. (2017): 435-441.
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Choma, Becky L., Jaysan J. Charlesford, Leah Dalling, and Kirsty Smith. "Effects of Viewing 9/11 Footage on Distress and Islamophobia: A Temporally Expanded Approach." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 45, no. 6 (2015): 345-354.
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Eaton, Nicholas R. "Hijab, religiosity, and psychological wellbeing of Muslim women in the United States." Journal of Muslim Mental Health 9, no. 2 (2015).
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Hassan, Safiah. "When You Are the News: The Health Effects of Contemporary Islamophobia on Muslims in the United States and United Kingdom." PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 2017.
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Hassouneh, Dena. "Anti-Muslim Racism and Women's Health." Journal of Women's Health 26, no. 5 (2017): 401-02.
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Kassamali, Naveen. Affects of Islamophobia. Notre Dame de Namur University (2016).
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Koura, Fatima. "Hijab in the Western Workplace: Exploring Islamic Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Discrimination." Journal of Psychology 4, no. 2 (2016): 80-88.
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Laird, Lance D., Mona M. Amer, Elizabeth D. Barnett, and Linda L. Barnes. "Muslim patients and health disparities in the UK and the US." Archives of Disease in Childhood 92, no. 10 (2007): 922-926.
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Martin, Mary Brigid. "Perceived discrimination of Muslims in health care." Journal of Muslim Mental Health 9, no. 2 (2015).
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Padela, Aasim I., and Afrah Raza. "American Muslim health disparities: the state of the Medline literature." Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice 8, no. 1 (2014): 1.
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Padela, Aasim I., and Michele Heisler. "The association of perceived abuse and discrimination after September 11, 2001, with psychological distress, level of happiness, and health status among Arab Americans." American journal of public health 100, no. 2 (2010): 284-291.
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Rippy AE, Newman E. Perceived religious discrimination and its relationship to anxiety and paranoia among Muslim Americans. Journal of Muslim Mental Health. 2006;1(1):5–20. 43
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Rippy, Alyssa E., and Elana Newman. "Adaptation of a Scale of Race-Related Stress for Use with Muslim Americans." Journal of Muslim Mental Health 3, no. 1 (2008): 53.
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Saleem, Muniba, and Srividya Ramasubramanian. "Muslim Americans’ responses to social identity threats: Effects of media representations and experiences of discrimination." Media Psychology (2017): 1-21.
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Samari, Goleen. "Islamophobia and Public Health in the United States." American Journal of Public Health 106, no. 11 (2016): 1920-25.
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Schmuck, Desirée, Jörg Matthes, and Frank Hendrik Paul. "Negative Stereotypical Portrayals of Muslims in Right-Wing Populist Campaigns: Perceived Discrimination, Social Identity Threats, and Hostility Among Young Muslim Adults." Journal of Communication 67, no. 4 (2017): 610-634.
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Shawahin, Lamise N. "Psychosocial factors and mental health of Muslims living in the United States." Doctoral Dissertation, Purdue University (2016).
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Simpson, Jennifer L, Carter Kimberly. Muslim women’s experiences with health care providers in a rural area of the United States. Journal of Transcultural Nursing 19, no. 1 (2008): 16–23
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Sinky, Tassnym Hussein. "Experiences and Correlates of Healthcare Discrimination Among Saudis in the United States." Doctoral Dissertation, Oregon State University (2017).