Black-white Segregation Research Articles

Referrals and Black-White Coronary Heart Disease Treatment Disparities: A Qualitative Study of Primary Care Physician Perspectives.

Black-White coronary heart disease (CHD) treatment disparities are well documented, especially regarding the use of high-quality hospitals. Physician referral networks may play a role. To understand how primary care physicians (PCPs) make specialty referrals for CHD treatment and how referrals may contribute to treatment disparities. Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. We purposively recruited 45 PCPs (50 invited, 90% response rate) in three metro areas with high Black-White segregation of cardiac care networks (New York City; Chicago; Atlanta). We developed the focus group discussion guide from interviews and current literature. We conducted two focus groups per metro area via Zoom. Two expert team members independently coded the transcripts using inductive techniques and analyzed focus group content and themes using Dedoose. Most participants were male (62.2%), White (57.8%), and practiced for at least 23years. We identified several recurrent themes for factors influencing cardiology referrals. The most frequently mentioned themes were heavy reliance on professional networks, specialist availability, timeliness, communication style, patient geographic and economic constraints, and patient preferences. PCPs used anecdotal and not data-driven evidence to assess hospital quality and viewed Black-White differences in high-quality hospital use as due to patient economic status and preferences or differences in hospital access and provider referral bias. PCPs' referral decisions for CHD treatment are primarily driven by access to specific professional networks and the socioeconomic circumstances of their patients. Nevertheless, PCPs strive to make the best available decisions, leaning into their networks and honoring patient preferences. While PCPs acknowledged existing disparities, they attributed them to patient and system factors rather than provider referral bias. Mitigating disparities will require interventions to improve minority-serving providers' formal and informal connections with high-quality specialists and hospitals, address patient socioeconomic constraints, and train providers to recognize their potential biases and misconceptions.

The Diverging Paths of Black-White Segregation in Urban America, 1970–1990

The Diverging Paths of Black-White Segregation in Urban America, 1970–1990

7-day patterns in Black-White segregation in 49 metropolitan areas

While residential segregation is a persistent attribute of metropolitan areas, recent studies find segregation levels fluctuate throughout the day, reaching their lowest levels during daytime hours. This paper shows hourly variations in Black-White segregation from Monday through Sunday for the top 49 most populated metropolitan areas with Global Positioning System (GPS) data collected from mobile phones from October 2018. I find that segregation levels are higher on average over weekends compared to that of weekdays. I use models to identify the characteristics of neighborhoods with higher levels of segregation on weekends, which include all demographic variables and nearly a third of 35 sectors of businesses and organizations, such as retail, personal care, and religious organizations. I also find more than a third of the sectors are associated with higher levels of segregation during business hours on weekdays, including academic institutions, health care, manufacturing, and financial institutions. Findings from this paper display the significance in the distinction between weekdays and weekends with where people spend their time and how this relates to racial segregation. Specifically, Black people, on average, stay in their home census tracts and visit non-White neighborhoods for organizational resources more so than White people. Significant patterns of associations between racial segregation and the majority of businesses demonstrate the salience of race for more industries than previously understood.

Home Price Change and Ethno-racial Residential Segregation: Temporal Relationships at the Metro Level

Although rates of residential racial segregation and home prices are undoubtedly related, the temporal nature of the relationship has rarely been studied. Using fixed effects models in a cross-lagged framework, we examine how prior changes in segregation and home prices at the metro level predict changes in the other. Our findings suggest that increases in home prices predict increasing racial segregation years later, but increases in segregation fail to predict subsequent change in home values. Metros that experience a 1 standard deviation increase in home prices experience an associated 0.25 standard deviation increase in Black-White segregation 10 years later and a 0.18 standard deviation increase 20 years later. No relationship is observed for Hispanic-White segregation. We discuss implications for understanding the economic underpinnings of segregation. Findings also offer insight into future segregation trends and illuminate how changes in the housing market may drive demographic trends more broadly.

Association Between Markers of Structural Racism and Mass Shooting Events in Major US Cities

The root cause of mass shooting events (MSEs) and the populations most affected by them are poorly understood. To examine the association between structural racism and mass shootings in major metropolitan cities in the United States. This cross-sectional study of MSEs in the 51 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the United States analyzes population-based data from 2015 to 2019 and the Gun Violence Archive. The data analysis was performed from February 2021 to January 2022. Shooting event where 4 or more people not including the shooter were injured or killed. MSE incidence and markers of structural racism from demographic data, Gini income coefficient, Black-White segregation index, and violent crime rate. There were 865 MSEs across all 51 MSAs from 2015 to 2019 with a total of 3968 injuries and 828 fatalities. Higher segregation index (ρ = 0.46, P = .003) was associated with MSE incidence (adjusted per 100 000 population) using Spearman ρ analysis. Percentage of the MSA population comprising Black individuals (ρ = 0.76, P < .001), children in a single-parent household (ρ = 0.44, P < .001), and violent crime rate (ρ = 0.34, P = .03) were other variables associated with MSEs. On linear regression, structural racism, as measured by percentage of the MSA population comprising Black individuals, was associated with MSEs (β = 0.10; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0.14; P < .001). Segregation index (β = 0.02, 95% CI, -0.03 to 0.06; P = .53), children in a single-parent household (β = -0.04, 95% CI, -0.11 to 0.04; P = .28), and Gini income coefficient (β = -1.02; 95% CI, -11.97 to 9.93; P = .93) were not associated with MSEs on linear regression. This study found that major US cities with higher populations of Black individuals are more likely to be affected by MSEs, suggesting that structural racism may have a role in their incidence. Public health initiatives aiming to prevent MSEs should target factors associated with structural racism to address gun violence.

There Goes the Neighborhood: How Racial Threat Shapes the Formation of Integrated and Segregated Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods in the United States are highly segregated by race. Black–white segregation is particularly acute. Although racial segregation has been declining in recent years, it remains extremely high—especially in the largest metropolitan areas. The historical pattern has been that as African Americans move into a neighborhood, whites move out and thus the neighborhood (gradually or rapidly) transitions from predominantly white to predominantly black. A seemingly contradictory pattern has recently been observed: integrated neighborhoods are becoming more common. Why do some neighborhoods transition from white to black and others become integrated? We use racial competition theory to answer this question. We examine the characteristics of stable, integrated neighborhoods and contrast them with segregated predominantly white, predominantly black, and rapidly transitioning neighborhoods in six large metropolitan areas. We find that the location of black neighborhoods is a key factor in whether an integrated neighborhood remains integrated. Specifically, we find integrated neighborhoods are spatially distant from majority black neighborhoods while transitioning neighborhoods are adjacent to them. Our findings support the “sense of threat” hypothesis of racial competition theory.

Racial Diversity and Segregation: Comparing Principal Cities, Inner-Ring Suburbs, Outlying Suburbs, and the Suburban Fringe

This article uses 2020 Census data to document recent trends in suburbanization, ethnoracial diversity, and residential segregation in the United States. It considers variation across inner-ring suburbs, outlying suburbs, and exurban areas at the metropolitan (metro) fringe. Suburbanization has recently continued, albeit more slowly than the 1990s and 2000s. Nearly two-thirds of all metro residents now live in the suburbs, fueled by change among ethnoracial minorities. For the first time, a majority of metro Blacks reside in suburbs. America’s suburbs, especially inner-ring suburbs, have experienced extraordinary increases in racial diversity. Declines continue in metro segregation, and segregation remains lower in the suburbs than principal cities, especially in outlying and fringe areas. For suburban Asians and Hispanics, however, exposure to Whites has declined since 1990. The suburban fringe remains the least diverse component of metro America. The fringe is less segregated than other metro areas, but has experienced patterns (such as growing Black-White segregation) contrary to national trends.

Anti-Black residential preferences in Toronto

ABSTRACT Urban studies scholars have explored the relationship between anti-Black residential preferences and segregation for nearly 50 years in the United States. The classical conception was that Black-white segregation was created and reinforced by a mix of anti-Black preference, discrimination, and poverty. Recently, scholars have been puzzled about why open anti-Blackness has diminished, but segregation has not. The compelling explanations for this turn are useful, but of limited applicability for cities outside of the United States in the Global North. In places such as Paris, London, and Toronto, substantial Black populations are of relatively recent origin, so some of the historical and social drivers of American segregation do not exist in the same form there, even if anti-Blackness does. This paper explores anti-Black residential preferences in Toronto using a 2,314-person online panel. I argue that the racial capitalism paradigm provides a more flexible and robust way to interpret the consequences of anti-Black preferences than segregation metrics. Housing markets are a primary mechanism for materializing racism. At times, that takes the form of segregation, but at other times it assumes different, but equally material, forms.

Horizontal and Vertical Racial Segregation in Higher Education: Examining Trends in California Public Colleges

ABSTRACT Conceptualizing and measuring trends in segregation in higher education is difficult as both vertical and horizontal sorting is prevalent and patterns vary across racial groups. In this paper, we measure various trends in racial segregation in California for 20 years. We find significant sorting by race both between and within sectors of higher education, though the overall levels of segregation are lower in California’s colleges than they are in California’s high schools. These trends have and remained relatively stable over time. We also find important differences between groups. We see that most Latinx-White and Black-White segregation is due to students attending different schools within the same sector, while Asian-White segregation is increasingly due to students attending schools in different sectors. We also find evidence that policy and structural changes, such as opening a new campus, can affect patterns of segregation across and within sectors.

Introduction from the Editorial Team

Introduction from the Editorial Team Selima Sultana, Paul Knapp, Ridwaana Allen, and Tyler Mitchell The publication of issue 62.3 (Fall) marks nearly the three-fourths point of our term as an editorial team. An advertisement for the position of the next editor(s) of Southeastern Geographer has already been disseminated with the anticipation that the new editorial team will start their responsibilities in the summer of 2023. The journal, which had its first issue published in 1961, has served as an outlet for scholarly research from early- through late-career scientists focusing on geographical studies of the American South. The journal’s principal foci have been twofold: 1) to help develop potentially interesting research to make it publishable, timely, and relevant to a broad audience; and 2) to serve as a medium that promotes and documents the activities of SEDAAG (https://sedaag.org/) members. Included in this issue is a compilation of ten essays from former colleagues and friends that recognize the scholarly work, mentoring, and kindness of the late Dr. Bobby Wilson. In reading through the essays, a great appreciation of Dr. Wilson’s contributions emerges, and it is wonderful that the journal can serve as a forum to publish these essays. This issue also includes a cover image of Atlanta and an accompanying essay about the city by Eric Spears and Jordan Brasher of Columbus State University as background information for the upcoming SEDAAG meeting that will be held in Atlanta on November 19–22, 2022. Finally, each year the Fall issue of Southeastern Geographer includes recognition of SEDAAG members for outstanding service and scholarship contributions in a summary of the previous Annual Meeting activities. We hope that the incoming editorial team will continue the traditions of Southeastern Geographer. In addition to the Forum honoring the late Dr. Bobby Wilson, issue 62.3 includes three articles, summarized below, and two book reviews. We are grateful for the contributions made by these authors and the constructively critical comments offered by the reviewers that improved these high-quality papers. As always, please consider submitting your work to Southeastern Geographer as we are committed to facilitating a thorough review process conducted in a timely manner. Based on Mississippi being one of the hardest-hit states with respect to COVID-19, Ali et al. utilized the CDC’s social vulnerability index (CDC SVI), geographic information systems (GIS), and linear regression to examine the spatial pattern of COVID-19 and its association with social determinants of health. Unlike many other studies that use the CDC SVI, Ali et al. focus on the local scale rather than the national scale, specifically by investigating COVID-19 incidence and mortality at Mississippi’s county scale. The CDC SVI offers a relative vulnerability ranking based on four subthemes. The researchers did [End Page 174] observe a spatial association between the CDC SVI and COVID-19-related health outcomes. In particular, there was a statistically significant association between the SVI and cumulative mortality, while the SVI subtheme household composition and disability predicted higher incidence. Their overall findings help illustrate the dynamic nature of pandemics and how vulnerability may change over spatiotemporal scales. Higgins and Engle examine the Appalachian Just Transition and analyze two community food initiatives within the context of the Just Transition: a community-based gardening program and a produce prescription program (PPP). They investigate whether these programs maintain existing unjust systems or strive for a more equitable, sustainable future. They employ compassionate scholarship, propose the use of an evaluative approach, and make recommendations based on their findings. Overall, the programs did strive to address the lack of access to fresh and healthy food in their communities but were limited by systemic constraints which hindered their ability to make lasting changes. Smith and Blizard quantitatively examine the relationship between municipal incorporation and Black-White segregation in the southern United States between 1990 and 2010. They utilize the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition of the South and employ two modeling techniques: difference regression and spatial lag first difference regression. They found high levels of municipal incorporation in counties within Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Alabama and increasing levels of Black-White segregation in several states...

Does Municipal Incorporation Influence Levels of Black-White Segregation? Evidence from Counties in the Southern United States, 1990–2010

Does Municipal Incorporation Influence Levels of Black-White Segregation? Evidence from Counties in the Southern United States, 1990–2010

Hispanic Threat and Police Strength in U.S. Municipalities: The Moderating Influences of Nativity and Region

AbstractA key question of research on crime control is whether the level of police strength in cities primarily represents citizens’ collective interest in cutting crime, or whites’ interest in exerting control over minority populations in a racially divided society. Minority threat theories maintain that whites and police authorities seek to protect their interests by mobilizing their political power to enhance police strength in cities with relatively large minority populations. Research testing this hypothesis examines the relationships of percent black and percent Hispanic to the strength of police departments. Studies of blacks support minority threat theories, but the limited research on Hispanics does not. We extend research on Hispanics by incorporating nativity and region into an analysis of cities of 100,000 or more population in 2010. Noteworthy findings include complex interactions involving those predictors. Percent native-born Hispanic has a stronger negative relationship with police strength at higher levels of Hispanic-white residential segregation, but only in southwestern cities. Percent black is associated with increased police strength at higher levels of black-white segregation, but only in non-southwestern cities. These findings indicate that nativity, segregation, and regional context may jointly shape the mobilization of coercive crime control, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Temporal transition of racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 outcomes in 3108 counties of the United States: Three phases from January to December 2020

Early studies reported higher risk of COVID-19 outcomes for racial/ethnic minorities in the early phase of the pandemic in the United States. While the initial surge of COVID-19 was concentrated in some areas, COVID-19 became pervasive across the entire continent with high impacts in the northern region and central region in the end of 2020. With this geographical transition, we aim to investigate patterns of these racial/ethnic disparities over time.We assessed associations of percentage of race/ethnic minorities and racial segregation indexes with COVID-19 case and mortality rates in 3108 counties of the continental United States during the pandemic's early phase, second, and third phase (January 21–June 15, June 16–August 31, and September 1–December 18, 2020, respectively). We adjusted for population density, age, and sex. We tested whether time-varying associations were consistent across climate regions and explained by socioeconomic variables.In the early phase, counties with higher percentage of Black/African Americans and higher Black-White segregation had higher COVID-19 case and mortality rates. These associations decreased over time and reversed in the third phase. Associations between Hispanic and COVID-19 outcomes were positive in all periods, but more so early in the pandemic. Higher COVID-19 case rates for counties with higher non-Hispanic White population emerged in the third phase. These trends were similar across climate regions, and socioeconomic variables did not explain these trends.In summary, county-level racial/ethnic disparities of COVID-19 are not stationary but change over the course of the pandemic, suggesting complex social, cultural, and political influences.

Firearm homicide mortality is influenced by structural racism in US metropolitan areas.

Metropolitan cities in the United States suffer from higher rates of gun violence. However, the specific structural factors associated with increased gun violence are poorly defined. We hypothesized that firearm homicide in metropolitan cities would be impacted by Black-White segregation index. This cross-sectional analysis evaluated 51 US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) using data from 2013 to 2017. Several measures of structural racism were examined, including the Brooking Institute's Black-White segregation index. Demographic data were derived from the US Census Bureau, US Department of Education, and US Department of Labor. Crime data and firearm homicide mortality rates were obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Centers for Disease Control. Spearman ρ and linear regression were performed. Firearm mortality was associated with multiple measures of structural racism and racial disparity, including White-Black segregation index, unemployment rate, poverty rate, single parent household, percent Black population, and crime rates. In regression analysis, percentage Black population exhibited the strongest association with firearm homicide mortality (β = 0.42, p < 0.001). Black-White segregation index (β = 0.41, p = 0.001) and percent children living in single-parent households (β = 0.41, p = 0.002) were also associated with higher firearm homicide mortality. Firearm legislation scores were associated with lower firearm homicide mortality (β = -0.20 p = 0.02). High school and college graduation rates were not associated with firearm homicide mortality and were not included in the final model. Firearm homicide disproportionately impacts communities of color and is associated with measures of structural racism, such as White-Black segregation index. Public health interventions targeting gun violence must address these systemic inequities. Furthermore, given the association between firearm mortality and single-parent households, intervention programs for at-risk youth may be particularly effective. Epidemiological level II.

Using machine learning to estimate the effect of racial segregation on COVID-19 mortality in the United States

This study examines the role that racial residential segregation has played in shaping the spread of COVID-19 in the United States as of September 30, 2020. The analysis focuses on the effects of racial residential segregation on mortality and infection rates for the overall population and on racial and ethnic mortality gaps. To account for potential confounding, I assemble a dataset that includes 50 county-level factors that are potentially related to residential segregation and COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. These factors are grouped into eight categories: demographics, density and potential for public interaction, social capital, health risk factors, capacity of the health care system, air pollution, employment in essential businesses, and political views. I use double-lasso regression, a machine learning method for model selection and inference, to select the most important controls in a statistically principled manner. Counties that are 1 SD above the racial segregation mean have experienced mortality and infection rates that are 8% and 5% higher than the mean. These differences represent an average of four additional deaths and 105 additional infections for each 100,000 residents in the county. The analysis of mortality gaps shows that, in counties that are 1 SD above the Black-White segregation mean, the Black mortality rate is 8% higher than the White mortality rate. Sensitivity analyses show that an unmeasured confounder that would overturn these findings is outside the range of plausible covariates.

Does Hypersegregation Matter for Black-White Socioeconomic Disparities?

Massey and Denton's concept of hypersegregation describes how multiple and distinct forms of black-white segregation lead to high levels of black-white stratification. However, numerous studies assessing the association between segregation and racial stratification applied only one or two dimensions of segregation, neglecting how multiple forms of segregation combine to potentially exacerbate socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites. We address this by using data from the U.S. Census from 1980 to 2010 and data from the American Community Survey from 2012 to 2016 to assess trajectories for black-white disparities in educational attainment, employment, and neighborhood poverty between metropolitan areas with hypersegregation and black-white segregation, as measured by the dissimilarity index. Using a time-varying measure of segregation types, our results indicate that in some cases, hypersegregated metropolitan areas have been associated with larger black-white socioeconomic disparities beyond those found in metropolitan areas that are highly segregated in terms of dissimilarity but are not hypersegregated. However, the contrasts in black-white socioeconomic inequality between hypersegregated metropolitan areas and those with high segregation largely diminish by the 2012 to 2016 observation.

Segregation and Violence Reconsidered: Do Whites Benefit from Residential Segregation?

Despite marked declines in black-white segregation over the past half century, there has been limited scholarly attention to the effects of increasing integration. This is a significant omission given that sociologists have long viewed residential segregation as a fundamental determinant of racial inequality, and extant research has produced inconsistent findings on the consequences of segregation for different racial groups. Using the case of violence, this study leverages a unique combination of race-specific information on homicide, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics for 103 major metropolitan areas across five decades (1970 to 2010) to examine the criminogenic consequences of segregation for whites and blacks. Three notable findings emerge from our inquiry: (1) racial segregation substantially increases the risk of homicide victimization for blacks while (2) simultaneously decreasing the risk of white homicide victimization. The result of these heterogeneous effects is that (3) segregation plays a central role in driving black-white differences in homicide mortality. These findings suggest the declines in racial segregation since 1970 have substantially attenuated the black-white homicide gap.

Racial and ethnic disparities in adverse birth outcomes: Differences by racial residential segregation.

Racial and ethnic disparities in adverse birth outcomes have persistently been wide and may be explained by individual and area-level factors. Our primary objective was to determine if county-level black-white segregation modified the association between maternal race/ethnicity and adverse birth outcomes using birth records from the National Center for Health Statistics (2012). Based on maternal residence at birth, county-level black-white racial residential segregation was calculated along five dimensions of segregation: evenness, exposure, concentration, centralization, and clustering. We conducted a two-stage analysis: (1) county-specific logistic regression to determine whether maternal race and ethnicity were associated with preterm birth and term low birth weight; and (2) Bayesian meta-analyses to determine if segregation moderated these associations. We found greater black-white and Hispanic-white disparities in preterm birth in racially isolated counties (exposure) relative to non-isolated counties. We found reduced Hispanic-white disparities in term low birth weight in racially concentrated and centralized counties relative to non-segregated counties. Area-level poverty explained most of the moderating effect of segregation on disparities in adverse birth outcomes, suggesting that area-level poverty is a mediator of these associations. Segregation appears to modify racial/ethnic disparities in adverse birth outcomes. Therefore, policy interventions that reduce black-white racial isolation, or buffer the poor social and economic correlates of segregation, may help to reduce disparities in preterm birth and term low birth weight.

Racial Separation at Home and Work: Segregation in Residential and Workplace Settings

Racial segregation has long characterized urban life in the U.S., with research consistently showing that minority groups occupy different social spaces than whites. While past scholarship has focused largely on residential contexts, a considerable portion of individuals’ days is spent outside of the home and existing research misses the potential for cross-group contact in non-residential contexts. In this paper, we assess the levels and patterns of segregation in the environments where people spend their workday, for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian workers. Using commuting data from the Census Transportation Planning Package, we construct measures of racial composition in “workhoods” and compare metropolitan-level segregation in places of work and home. Results indicate that workhood segregation is substantially lower than residential segregation. Black-white segregation in work settings is, for example, half the level of black-white segregation in residential settings. Multivariate analyses also reveal that workhood segregation, for all groups, is higher in metropolitan areas with greater residential segregation. For Hispanic workers, areas with larger immigrant populations have higher workhood segregation, and for blacks, workhood segregation is lower in metropolitan areas with large military populations. Our findings also consistently show that black and Hispanic workhood segregation is lower in areas where minority groups are more occupationally disadvantaged.

MariaKrysan and KyleCrowderCycle of Segregation: Social Processes and Residential StratificationNew York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017. 288 p. $35.00

MariaKrysan and KyleCrowderCycle of Segregation: Social Processes and Residential StratificationNew York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017. 288 p. $35.00