Experiences of racism and subjective cognitive function in African American women.

Introduction: We hypothesized that frequent experiences of racism among African American women would adversely affect subjective cognitive function (SCF), based on the established association of psychological stress with memory decline.

Methods: We used multinomial logistic regression to quantify the association between experiences of racism and SCF, based on six questions, among 17,320 participants in the prospective Black Women's Health Study.

Results: The multivariable odds ratio (OR, 95% confidence interval [CI]) for poor compared to good SCF among women at the highest versus the lowest level of daily racism (eg, poorer service in stores) was 2.