Goleen Samari — Islamophobia and Public Health in the United States

21 published claims from this book.

• A definable stigma process operates at individual, interpersonal, and structural levels.
• Anti-Muslim prejudice functions as racialized discrimination tied to physical appearance.
• Everyday discrimination harms health through stress, physiology, and reduced care-seeking.
• Identity-affirming networks can paradoxically worsen distress for stigmatized groups.
• Islamophobia constructs a stigmatized Muslim identity through dehumanizing stereotypes rooted in Orientalism.
• Islamophobia harms both mental and physical health of Muslim Americans.
• Islamophobia harms Muslim health at individual, interpersonal, and structural levels
• Islamophobia impairs Muslim Americans’ trust in and use of health care
• Islamophobia intersects multiple identities to shape additive health effects.
• Islamophobia is a public health risk factor via stigma and discrimination.
• Media exposure to Muslim-related issues spikes negative attitudes.
• Post-1979 US media negativity and 1990s antiterrorism law intensified discrimination against Muslims and Sikhs.
• Provider stereotypes about Muslim women cause them to delay health care.
• Racial classification as White does not shield Middle Eastern Americans from Islamophobia.
• Researchers conflate Middle Eastern ethnicity with Muslim identity in health studies.
• Shared misery and external threats drive stigmatized groups toward protective internal solidarity
• Structural Islamophobia shapes health outcomes through institutional and community-level conditions.
• Structural policies and surveillance profiling create health disparities for Muslim Americans
• Structural stigma is linked to suicide, homicide, and cardiovascular disease.
• The American Muslim population will become the nation’s second-largest faith group by 2050
• US courts denied citizenship to Muslims and even Christians presumed Muslim until 1944.