Skip Navigation



American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on October 28, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwn291
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
168/11/1247    most recent
kwn291v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hearst, M. O.
Right arrow Articles by Johnson, P. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hearst, M. O.
Right arrow Articles by Johnson, P. J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2008. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Original Contribution

The Effect of Racial Residential Segregation on Black Infant Mortality

Mary O. Hearst, J. Michael Oakes and Pamela Jo Johnson

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 000.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Epidemiol RevHome page
M. R. Kramer and C. R. Hogue
Is Segregation Bad for Your Health?
Epidemiol. Rev., June 9, 2009; (2009) mxp001v2.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Int J EpidemiolHome page
J M. Oakes
Commentary: Individual, ecological and multilevel fallacies
Int. J. Epidemiol., April 1, 2009; 38(2): 361 - 368.
[Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Am J EpidemiolHome page
D. Acevedo-Garcia and T. L. Osypuk
Invited Commentary: Residential Segregation and Health--The Complexity of Modeling Separate Social Contexts
Am. J. Epidemiol., December 1, 2008; 168(11): 1255 - 1258.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.