How colorism gets "under the skin": The role of ethnic-racial discrimination and diurnal cortisol in the physical health of African American and Latino young adults.

Empirical research has identified ethnic-racial discrimination as a fundamental driver of health disparities and a key contributor to poorer physical health outcomes among African American and Latino populations. Colorism-bias that generally privileges lighter skin over darker skin-has also been linked to adverse health outcomes; however, little to no research has explored how the intersection of colorism and racism "gets under the skin" to influence physical health, particularly among young adults. Grounded in an intersectional framework, the present study recognizes that multiple systems of oppression-namely racism and colorism-do not operate independently but intersect to uniquely impact individuals based on their racialized and phenotypic identities. Using a sample of African American and Latino young adults, the current study examined whether skin tone may be indirectly associated with poorer physical health due to its association with ethnic-racial discrimination and diurnal cortisol patterns. Findings indicated that darker skin young adults experienced more ethnic-racial discrimination, which in turn, was associated with flatter diurnal cortisol slopes. Flatter diurnal slopes were also marginally related to poorer self-reported health over time. Taken together, these results underscore the importance of applying an intersectional lens to understanding health disparities, highlighting how the interwoven impacts of colorism and racism function as sociocultural stressors that become biologically embedded, ultimately influencing the physical health of racially and ethnically marginalized young adults.