American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on October 28, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 168(11):1247-1254; doi:10.1093/aje/kwn291
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ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS |
The Effect of Racial Residential Segregation on Black Infant Mortality
Correspondence to Dr. Mary O. Hearst, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, 1300 South Second Street, Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55454 (e-mail: hearst{at}umn.edu).
Received for publication October 9, 2007. Accepted for publication April 1, 2008.
Economic differences and proximal risk factors do not fully explain the persistent high infant mortality rates of African Americans (blacks). The authors hypothesized that racial residential segregation plays an independent role in high black infant mortality rates. Segregation restricts social and economic advantage and imposes negative environmental exposures that black women and infants experience. The study sample was obtained from the 2000–2002 US Linked Birth/Infant Death records and included 677,777 black infants residing in 64 cities with 250,000 or more residents. Outcomes were rates of all-cause infant mortality, postneonatal mortality, and external causes of death. Segregation was measured by using the isolation index (dichotomized at 0.60) from the 2000 US Census Housing Patterns. Propensity score matching methods were used. After matching on propensity scores, no independent effect of segregation on black infant mortality rates was found. Results show little statistical evidence that segregation plays an independent role in black infant mortality. However, a key finding is that it is difficult to disentangle contextual effects from the characteristics of individuals.
African Americans; infant mortality; prejudice; residence characteristics; risk factors
Editor's note: An invited commentary on this article is published on page 1255.
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Related articles in Am. J. Epidemiol.:
- Invited Commentary: Residential Segregation and Health—The Complexity of Modeling Separate Social Contexts
- Dolores Acevedo-Garcia and Theresa L. Osypuk
Am. J. Epidemiol. 2008 168: 1255-1258.[Abstract] [Full Text]
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