Racial Differences in Neighborhood Disadvantage Among Childbearing Women in New York City

Abstract

An ecological framework is utilized in this study to explore the differential neighborhood environments that existed for Black and White childbearing women in New York City during the early 1990s. We examined ecological risk factors for different racial groups in a highly segregated metropolitan city and provide a framework from which we can address issues of oppression and social inequality. This study examines neighborhood conditions and determines the extent to which Black and White women, who gave birth during 1991 and 1992, occupy differing neighborhoods in New York City and in each of the boroughs that comprise New York City-Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens (excluding Staten Island). High and persistent residential segregation of Blacks and Whites in NYC has put Black women at a clear and significant ecological disadvantage compared to White women regardless of the borough where they lived when they gave birth to their infant. This study found that, when compared to White women, Black women in New York City are at a vast disadvantage regardless of income. In Manhattan and Queens that disparity is the greatest with low income Black women much more likely than low income White women to live in a high poverty neighborhood. Overall, in NYC and across the four boroughs studied, low income Blacks were more likely than Whites to live in neighborhoods characterized by high poverty rates, substance abuse and inadequate health care.