User:Rka77/sandbox

Initial Summary
The weathering hypothesis was proposed to account for early health deterioration as a result of cumulative exposure to experiences of social, economic and political adversity. It is well documented that minority groups and marginalized communities suffer from poorer health outcomes. This may be due to a multitude of stressors including prejudice, social alienation, institutional bias, political oppression, economic exclusion and racial discrimination. The weathering hypothesis proposes that the cumulative burden of these stressors as individuals age is "weathering," and the disparity between the impact of weathering on minority groups versus others can account for their differential health outcomes. Increasing numbers of studies evaluating the physiological effects of social, environmental and political stressors support the biological plausibility of the weathering hypothesis. Furthermore, there is a growing body of scientific literature supporting the viability of the weather hypothesis as a framework for explaining health disparities on the basis of differential exposure to racially based stressors. In recent years, the hypothesis has gained further traction and is being investigated in relation to phenomena such as allostatic load, epigenetics, telomere shortening, and maternal health.

Origin
The weathering hypothesis was initially formulated by Arline T. Geronimus in 1992 as a construct to explain the poor maternal health and birth outcomes of African American women observed in correspondence with increased age. While working part-time at a school for pregnant teenagers in Trenton, New Jersey, Geronimus first noticed that the teens who came to the school tended to have far more health problems than her classmates at Princeton University. She thus began to wonder whether the health conditions of the teens at that clinic may have been caused by their environment. While in graduate school, she proposed the "weathering hypothesis". She chose the term weathering as a metaphor for the effects she perceived that exposure to stress was having on the health of marginalized people.