title: Race-related stress and smoking among pregnant African-American women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the association between the psychosocial construct of race-related stress and smoking among pregnant African-American women.
  
  
  METHODS
  Inferential statistical analyses were performed.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were recruited primarily at a medical clinic as well as through word-of-mouth consistent with the snowball sampling technique.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seventy pregnant self-identified African-American women (32 smokers and 38 non-smokers) 18 years or older participated in the study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants completed self-report measures of the Index of Race-Related Stress and an investigator-developed demographic and smoking questionnaire.
  
  
  METHODS
  Smoking status of each participant was established through self-report.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant associations were found between the smoking status of pregnant African-American women and the frequency and perceptions of overall race-related stress (p < 0.03 and 0.02, respectively), the frequency and perceptions of both individual and cultural race-related stress (p < 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, and 0.03, respectively). No associations were found between institutional race-related stress and smoking status.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings suggest that integrating race-related stress relieving and coping activities into smoking cessation intervention programs for pregnant African-American women may reduce smoking and subsequent smoking-related reproductive health disparities in the population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40511, United States.
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fernander
authors.affiliation: African American Studies and Research Program, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40536, United States.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moorman
authors.affiliation: University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40508, United States.
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Azuoru
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D044383:Black People; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007629:Kentucky / Q000453:epidemiology; D011247:Pregnancy; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology*; D001741:Black or African American