A Dynamic Model of Neighborhood SES and Racial Segregation on Health Disparities

Erin Ruel, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Stephanie A. Robert, University of Wisconsin at Madison

Literature by Massey and colleagues (1987, 1993) demonstrated that racial and class segregation can have serious implications for racial disparities in crime, education, and employment. The goal of this paper is to assess the relationship between health outcomes and both community racial and class segregation. We use latent class analysis to characterize communities in terms of racial and economic characteristics dynamically over time (between 1970 and 1980). Then we examine how individual health outcomes (e.g., self-rated health, functional status, chronic conditions) are associated with: 1. stable vs. transitional race classified communities, 2. stable vs. transitional economically classified communities, and 3. stable vs. transitional communities classified by the interaction of racial and economic characteristics. Individual-level data for health measures and demographic controls are from the 1986 Americans Changing Lives Survey (ACL, n=3,617 U.S. adults). Community-level data at the census tract level are matched with each ACL respondent for 1980.