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Title
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Victims of Racism: Loneliness and Physical Health
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Creator
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Tandy Tillinghast
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Degree Name
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professional_project
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Master of Science in Justice Studies
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Project Type
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professional_project
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Date
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6/15/2024
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Abstract
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Abstract
Every year, one out of four or five marginalized adult Americans is insulted, intimidated, harassed, assaulted, or murdered due to bigotry (Ehrlich 2009). Specifically, hate crimes in Oregon (DOJ, 2023) and nationally continue increasing (Kena & Thompson, 2021). To complicate the issue, racism effects social isolation (Singh et al., 2022) and loneliness impacts physical health as much as obesity or smoking (Cacioppo, J.T. in Adams, 2016; Hawley & Cacioppo, 2010). However, no research has studied the effects of racism on loneliness and physical health, and if intercessions would mediate these effects. This study considers the effects of hate crimes on victims, investigating associations between the variables of racism, loneliness, and physical health, along with interventions like Restorative Justice. By analyzing existing research from the 2022 and 2021 Bias Crimes Reports (Kerodal, et al., 2023 and 2022), the Tableau Public data analysis tool, and recent 2023 qualitative data from reports to the Bias Response Hotline (BHR), the researcher employed mixed methods analyses. Consequently, the path model proposes racial hate crimes (n=1,168 reports to BRH) effect isolation and alienation (272), which harm physical health (158). Furthermore, interventions (142) advanced transformative strategies for victims. These results verify that Bias Crimes and Incidents involving race comprise the majority of hate crimes. This study is the first to examine qualitative data from the BRH from 2023 and address the research gap by investigating racism and its effects on social isolation and physical health concurrently. While limited, this analysis responds to the requests of experts in diverse fields, including ethnicity and race, social science, social neuroscience, psychology, biological psychiatry, and public health to scrutinize the effects of racism on loneliness, and the consequences of both on physical health. Therefore, the researcher recommends the following: agencies collect added data on victims of bias crimes and their recovery; that scholars conduct longitudinal research on the three variables, perhaps using path analyses; and further inquiry on less overt forms of racism and their effects. Given extensive research in wide-ranging fields on two of the three factors, future studies should advance the multidisciplinary theoretical framework proposed here for investigating correlations between isolation, physical health, and interventions like Restorative Justice, for survivors of racism.
Keywords: hate crimes, bias crimes, racism, victim, loneliness, social isolation, physical health, intervention, Restorative Justice, and Multidisciplinary Theoretical Framework.
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Rights
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https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en
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Western Oregon University Library has determined, as of 6/29/2024, this item is in copyright, which is held by the author. Users may use the item in accordance with copyright limitations and exceptions, including fair use. For other uses, please ask permission from the author.
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Language
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English
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Type
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Text; Image; StillImage
