A new study out of UC Berkeley found that less-educated black women who report high levels of racial discrimination may face higher risk of developing chronic diseases.

Amani M. Allen, an associate professor of epidemiology and community health sciences in UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, was the lead author on the study, the results of which were published earlier this month in the journal Psycho­neuro­endocrinology.

Allen and her team studied 208 black women between the ages 30 and 50 from the Bay Area in order to examine the relationship between racial discrimination and allostatic load, a measure of chronic physiologic stress in the body and predictor of chronic diseases.

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