Stress and Adaptation in the Context of Culture: Depression in a Southern Black Community - Tapa dura

"The author brings maturity of understanding and balance in his examination of vulnerability and resistance factors related to symptom production in populations at risk. His integrative review of theory and research in the field is first rate. His selection of variables will undoubtedly influence other scholars in the field. His imaginative design strategy formally calls attention to matters which are grossly underinvestigated. The organization is excellent, the style of writing is lucid, and the findings are readily accessible to persons with introductory background in multivariate statistics. Introductory chapters are structured so that it made me eager to get to findings." -- Jerome Taylor, Ph.D., Director, Right Start Programs, Department of Black Community Education Research and Development, University of Pittsburgh

"The case studies enrich and lend substance to the data on social class and support, and the quantitative measures and analyses of stress lend support to the author's historical discussions. I think this is a model of good research." -- John F. Wilson, University of Kentucky College of Medicine

This book provides a unique study in social and cultural psychiatry, carried out in an African-American community in the rural South. Using a combination of concepts and methods from anthropology and social epidemiology, the specific social and psychological risk factors for depression are examined. The author places special emphasis on how that risk is modified by the social and historical context of the Black community in the United States, and suggests a new basis for the sociocultural comparative study of health and disease.