Does changing contexts to promote inclusion of people from underrepresented backgrounds improve health? In this line of work, I am exploring what characteristics of schools, workplaces, and other organizations improve health among people from underrepresented backgrounds. In one paper, looking at the health of midde school students, I have shown that when students of color attend schools where the value of diversity is emphasized (operationalized as schools mentioning diversity in their mission statements), students of color are at lower risk for cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases of aging. I am following up on this work by examining what practices in schools signal to students of color that diversity is valued and, thus, promote their health.

Does exposure to inequality harm the health of people in lower status groups? Does exposure to equality improve their health? In this line of work, I am exploring whether the health of people from lower status or negatively stereotyped groups improves when they are in institutions with greater equality in outcomes—for example, when they attend schools where there is relative equality in the academic performance of racial, socioeconomic, and gender groups, rather than greater inequality in the academic performance of these groups.

What messages promote healthy behavior among people from diverse backgrounds? In previous work, I have shown that fitting in one’s cultural context is associated with healthier behavior. Specifically, in the United States, where the mainstream culture emphasizes independence, people who are more independent eat healthier diets. In contrast, in Japan, where the mainsream culture emphasizes interdependence, people who are more interdependent eat a healthier diet (Levine et al., 2016). Building on this work, I am exploring whether health promoting messages that reflect culturally valued themes (i.e., independent messages in independent contexts and interdependent messages in interdependent contexts) are most effective at increasing healthy behavior.