This project will investigate the relationship between experiences of inequality and the processes/meanings underlying health assessments among African-American elders in Philadelphia. The study will build upon earlier work by Dressler to link social distress to health outcomes. The premise is that cultural models of health reflect the broader sociopolitical and economic realities of individuals' lives. It looks specifically at how African American elders define health and the models they use to assess their own health, and how these are linked to their assessment of the "health" of their communities.
