Low-income Black Communities Research Articles

The Utility of Virtual Home Visits to Reduce Asthma Burden in Low-Income Black Communities in Louisiana During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The Louisiana Department of Health identified a need for greater outreach in low-income Black communities that addressed environmental asthma triggers. We piloted an asthma virtual home visit (VHV) program and evaluated its reach and ability to promote asthma self-management strategies in communities with a high prevalence of poorly controlled asthma. Participants from Louisiana were continuously recruited into the VHV program starting in March 2021 and provided with asthma education materials. Participants reporting poorly controlled asthma and environmental triggers were also offered 3 VHVs with a respiratory therapist. All participants were asked to complete a preintervention and postintervention knowledge test, an Asthma Control Test (ACT) (maximum score = 25; scores ≤19 indicate poorly controlled asthma), and a final survey that assessed perceptions about asthma management and reduction of environmental triggers. As of October 2022, 147 participants were enrolled in the program, and 52 had consented to and received ≥1 VHV. Forty VHV recipients (77%) were aged <18 years, 40 (77%) were Black people, and 46 (88%) were from families with extremely low or low incomes. Asthma symptoms improved across all participants, with a median increase of 2.4 points on the ACT. Knowledge tests revealed that 86% of participants learned about ≥1 new asthma trigger; a larger percentage of VHV recipients than nonrecipients (68% vs 36%) had an improved knowledge test score postintervention. Compared with preintervention, about three-quarters of participants reported feeling more empowered to self-manage their asthma and a significant improvement in their quality of life postintervention. The program provided virtual asthma education to communities with a high burden of asthma and improved asthma outcomes for participants. Similar virtual models can be used to promote health equity, especially in areas with limited access to health care.

Rooted resistance: The struggle for Black liberation through food cultivation

ABSTRACT In U.S. cities, distinct regions of wealth and poverty structure the distribution of political power and public resources along racial lines. Black-led urban farms resist these inequitable conditions by using food cultivation as a tool of community resilience building and power shifting. In this study, I propose a framework to describe the roles of Black-led urban farms within low-income Black communities. I assess this framework using a comparative case study and semi-structured interviews with Black urban farmers in Atlanta, Georgia; Detroit, Michigan; and Portland, Oregon. Findings suggest that Black-led urban farms advance Black community survival and wellbeing by instilling local Black placemaking, fostering personal and racial healing, and resisting racial capitalism. I conclude that Black-led urban farms function as “compass institutions” and generate social value that benefits their respective cities. I provide policy recommendations for local governments and prospective funders seeking to advance the social impact of these farms.

"We're not killing you; we are simply withdrawing your oxygen": Chicago's Catholic Education Crisis and the Providence-St. Mel School Debate

Amid a financial crisis afflicting its schools, on March 28, 1978, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced its closure of the West Side's only Catholic high school: Providence-St. Mel. The debate over funding Providence-St. Mel highlights how archdiocesan officials, students, parents, school staff, and others understood and reacted to the crisis in inner city Catholic education—one of the most significant racial issues confronting the Church. For Archbishop John Cody, the issue was money and religion. Throughout the later 1960s and 1970s, the Chancery Office allayed the school crisis with increased financial aid; however, this contributed to a growing archdiocesan budget deficit. Because Providence-St. Mel consistently needed funding, Cody argued it was difficult to maintain financial support. Aside from monetary considerations, he characterized Providence-St. Mel as "not basically Catholic," a designation meant to relieve the archdiocese of its fiscal responsibility. For Providence-St. Mel supporters, the primary issue was providing a quality Catholic education for students in a low-income black community. Consequently, the archdiocese's closure decision was seen as evidence of the Catholic Church's lack of concern for the inner city and the black community.

Valuing the Aspirations of the Community: The Origins of a Community–University Partnership

Universities are increasingly prioritizing engagement and collaboration with their local communities. While such partnerships can be mutually beneficial, they can often perpetuate and exacerbate power differentials, particularly when the community partners belong to racially minoritized groups. This qualitative paper examines the founding of a community–university partnership between a Black, low-income community and a predominantly White university. Through the theoretical framework of aspirational capital, we find that valuing the experiences and aspirations of the community helped establish a more equitable partnership forged to support a community-led, culturally relevant after-school program. Centering the aspirations of Black community members and the epistemologies of the Black women on the program staff also served to acknowledge and address power imbalances at the founding stages of the partnership. Recognizing and valuing the aspirational capital of community members also positively impacted the university-based staff’s ability to function as boundary spanners between the university and community who could adequately articulate the desires and needs of program staff. We argue that by recognizing and valuing the aspirational capital already present in low-income Black communities, universities can create more equitable partnerships for positive social change.

For Every Rat Killed

If my grandmother had survived the sickness of old age and were alive to witness the economic injustices wrought by capitalist culture, what would she think? If my grandmother were alive to observe familiar technologies for exterminating household pests—surveillance, capture, imprisonment, disposal—being increasingly aimed toward low-income Black communities, what would she believe? If my grandmother were alive to discover, in the palm of her hands, a digital platform for spreading information (and misinformation) to the masses and painting new futures into the minds of lawmakers and politicians, what would she say? Studies have shown that low-income individuals are more likely to suffer physiological and psychological harms than middle- and high-income individuals due to the substandard conditions of their communities. Yet, such indignities are justified by market opportunities to grasp for better—to take “personal responsibility” and “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”—even when the process of grasping for upward social mobility inflicts its own trauma. This Essay explores the trauma of grasping for better in the United States where wealth inequities only seem to be getting worse. In so doing, it considers whether capitalism’s competitive and individualistic culture—a spirit that thrives on the exploitation of the weak to further the capital accumulation of the strong—not only normalizes violence as a mechanism for social mobility but sews division and strife where alternative futures, perhaps even Afro-futures, might finally set us all free.

Truth and Reparation for the U.S. Imprisonment and Policing Regime

AbstractIn the literature on transitional justice, there is disagreement about whether countries like the United States can be characterized as transitional societies. Though it is widely recognized that transitional justice mechanisms such as truth commissions and reparations can be used by Global North nations to address racial injustice, some consider societies to be transitional only when they are undergoing a formal democratic regime change. We conceptualize the political situation of low-income Black communities under the U.S. imprisonment and policing regime in terms of three criteria for identifying transitional contexts: normalized collective and political wrongdoing, pervasive structural inequality, and the failure of the rule of law. That these criteria are met, however, does not necessarily mean that a transition is taking place. Drawing on the American political development and abolition democracy literatures, we discuss what it would mean for the United States to transition out of its present imprisonment and policing regime. A transitional justice perspective shows the importance of not only pushing for truth and reparation, but for an actual transition.

Monica Peek: addressing diabetes health disparities

Monica Peek's diverse research portfolio has included diabetes, breast cancer, and COVID-19. The common thread running through her work is the impact of structural and interpersonal racism on people's lives and health. “Fighting racism…this is part of my core, essential to who I am”, says Peek, Professor of Medicine in the Section of General Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago, IL, USA. Her research has been instrumental in improving shared decision making between clinicians and low-income Black patients with diabetes. “Shared decision making is something that has historically been studied in Europe, Canada, and the USA among primarily white patient populations. Yet the largest power differentials between patients and their providers do not occur in race concordant relationships. It occurs between physicians, who are disproportionately affluent and white, and patients who have less power because of marginalised social identities such as race, national origin, or sexual orientation. That is where we need shared decision-making efforts the most”, she explains. Peek and her colleagues have created shared decision-making models, tools, videos, and standards that are now used by diabetes organisations. By any means necessary: why lowering insulin prices is relevant to racial health equityWhen young revolutionaries in the 1960s sought to free Black people in the USA from lives of structured racism (ie, the differential access to opportunity, goods, and services by race) “by any means necessary”,1 few people imagined this movement might one day include efforts to overcome exorbitant insulin prices. Yet organisations such as the Black Panther Party (BPP) understood long ago how poverty and other structural inequities lead to worse health, and were instrumental in creating a framework for cross-sector collaboration to address health disparities in low-income Black communities. Full-Text PDF

By any means necessary: why lowering insulin prices is relevant to racial health equity

When young revolutionaries in the 1960s sought to free Black people in the USA from lives of structured racism (ie, the differential access to opportunity, goods, and services by race) “by any means necessary”,1 few people imagined this movement might one day include efforts to overcome exorbitant insulin prices. Yet organisations such as the Black Panther Party (BPP) understood long ago how poverty and other structural inequities lead to worse health, and were instrumental in creating a framework for cross-sector collaboration to address health disparities in low-income Black communities.

Present and future sea level rise at the intersection of race and poverty in the Carolinas: A geospatial analysis

Sea level rise (SLR) has and will continue to impact coastal communities in the coming decades. Despite the widespread availability of data on SLR projections, little is known about the differential impact of SLR on minority or economically disadvantaged populations. In this study, we aim to identify the geographic areas in which low-income and communities of color along the North and South Carolina coastline in the United States will experience the most severe effects of SLR. Geospatial mapping was performed to estimate the total area impacted by 1) SLR, 2) tidal inundation, and 3) low-lying areas separately for three scenarios (0-, 2-, and 4-feet). Findings project that over 2.2 million people and at least 370,000 Black or economically disadvantaged individuals will be impacted by SLR by 2100. Results showed that the most economically deprived and racially segregated communities are already experiencing the effects of SLR, including more frequent tidal inundation and low-lying flooding. Inland flooding is seven times more likely to occur in low-income Black communities compared to high-income white communities. Findings highlight the urgent need for additional resources and adaptive measures that target low-income, black communities who will continue to be disproportionately impacted by SLR in coastal Carolina.

Energy transitions in a time of intersecting precarities: From reductive environmentalism to antiracist praxis

Drawing from ethnographic research on solar energy campaigns in low-income Black communities, this article explores the unlikely intersections of three developments in early 2020: Covid-19, the Movement for Black Lives, and the YouTube re-release of “Planet of the Humans,” a documentary that disparages renewable energy. While the film is misleading and inaccurate, “Planet” provides fodder for reimagining renewable energy initiatives in ways that advance this moment’s antiracist activism and reinvigorate communities of color reeling from Covid-19’s disruptions. Specifically, I explore how solar energy campaigns in these communities unwittingly contribute to some of the environmental problems sensationalized by “Planet,” (e.g. mining, toxic waste, occupational hazards). In the process, these antiracist campaigns paradoxically reinforce the white supremacist hierarchies that shape commodity production. This paradox emerges when campaigns focus on what I call “the means of reduction” as opposed to the means of production. “The means of reduction” refers to the practices that render commodities as capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and electricity bills. In response, I offer a pragmatic praxis for aligning community solar campaigns with antiracist principles—linkages that can help communities of color address intersecting precarities. This praxis shifts the focus from reduction to production so as to ensure that community solar efforts are working toward antiracist values. The praxis’ “theoretical” component repurposes the concept of “co-pollutants” to illuminate environmental injustices throughout solar supply chains. Its “practice” component operationalizes this theoretical component, addressing solar’s co-pollutants by shifting the focus of community solar campaigns from consumer power to people power.

Black Residents Navigate an Unequal Food Landscape in Washington, D.C.

First paragraph: In Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C., Dr. Ashanté Reese guides us through the interconnected issues that affect the food landscape in many low-income Black communities, through the words and experi­ences of residents of Washington, DC’s, Dean­wood neighborhood. In examining residents’ “geographies of self-reliance,” she uses the neigh­borhood as a prism to refract the intertwining and contradictory forces hidden within the inaccurate label “food desert.” As she says in her concluding chapter, “The neighborhood functions as an intermediary space where macro-level processes, such as where resources are placed, can be con­nected to micro-level processes, such as how residents determine what to buy and where to buy it from” (p. 131). . . .

Unending foreclosure crisis: Uneven housing tenure trajectories of post-REO properties

The purpose of this study is to explore the housing tenure trajectories of post-REO properties, with a focus on their sales processes and neighborhood spillover effects over time. This study suggests that the renter occupancy of post-REO properties in minority communities could lead to continuing negative spillover effects. Between 2006 and 2013, REO properties were geographically concentrated in low-income Black communities and moderate-income Hispanic neighborhoods in Orange County, Florida. The resale duration of the REO properties in poor African American communities tended to be longer and the post-REO properties in these neighborhoods are more likely to be renter-occupied. In spite of comparatively short resale durations for REOs in Hispanic neighborhoods, post-REO properties were often renter-occupied. The renter-occupancy of post-REO properties might reinforce racial segregation, but it could also be a source of affordable housing. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the trajectories of post-REO properties and their spillover effects.

CRIME, URBAN POVERTY, AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Todd R. Clear,Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 255 pages, ISBN: 978-0-19-538720-9. Paper, $21.95.Sudhir Venkatesh,Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. 303 pages, ISBN: 978-1-59420-150-9. Cloth, $25.95.In recent years, sociologists have conducted enormously important research on the intersection of urban poverty, crime, and the racial divide. Quantitative stratification sociologist Bruce Western provides a meticulous tracing of the emergence of mass incarceration, tracking its steady development and identifying how and why—both economically and politically—this trend has fallen so heavily on low-income Black communities (Western 2006). Quantitative stratification sociologist Devah Pager carries out remarkably innovative and compelling field experiments showing the terrible toll incarceration takes on the employment prospects and, therefore, the greater life chances of former felons, particularly those who are Black (Pager 2007). And the combined efforts of quantitative criminologist Chris Uggen and quantitative political sociologist Jeff Manza reveal the extraordinary distortion of our local and national politics that results from the practice of felon disfranchisement (Manza and Uggen, 2006).

Product and Process Dialectic: Developing an Indigenous Approach to Community Development Training

Summary An appreciation of constructivist theory guides the authors' understanding of the circular nature of community development training and learning, particularly in a society in transition from division to unification. The writers examine the process of indigenisation of a community development curriculum, emphasizing the consequential empowerment of both self and community as the students become involved in creating an environment for social and economic change in the new South Africa. The teaching innovations examined include: Learning beyond the classroom and peer-mediated video learning. Students were from black, Indian, white and colored, middle-income African families and carried out their community development task in a selected low-income black community. The authors discuss the teaching/learning innovations in light of Gokarn's three competencies: development of self-awareness, knowledge about the learner, and the use of small group technology of education.

Race, Place, and Risk Revisited

In 1990, our study of Black homicide in six cities over 25 years, Race, Place and Risk: Black Homicide in Urban America, was published. In the epilogue, the authors identified the emergence of a new phase of violent behavior occurring in low-income Black communities but were not able to identify its etiology. This article extends into the early to mid-1990s our earlier work on Black homicide in urban America. The authors focus on the 8-year interval, 1985 to 1993, after the publication of Race, Place and Risk. The factor that distinguishes homicides of the current period from those of our earlier period is that the age of both victimization and offending has moved downward. In an effort to identify the reasons for this downward shift, the authors examine victimization in 4 previous high-risk urban places (Atlanta, GA; Detroit, MI; St. Louis, MO; and Los Angeles, CA), and 4 newly emerged, high-risk centers (Washington, DC; New Orleans, LA; Milwaukee, WI; and Charlotte, NC). The authors suggest that the development of an oppositional culture among young Black males is an important element in accounting for the most recent upsurge in lethal victimizations in the nation's larger urban centers.

Segregation by Gerrymander: The Creation of the Lincoln Heights (Ohio) School District

This historical case study traces the formation of a specific school district profoundly influenced by racial, political, sociological, and economic factors. Its analysis of the racial, political, and economic environments prevailing in Cincinnati, Ohio, from the turn of the century through the 1950s illuminates the formation of a school district serving a predominantly low-income Black community and student body. This investigation shows how economic factors influenced the formation of cities and communities and how the formation of school districts was intricately tied to this evolution. Furthermore, it confirms the relationship between economic participation and educational opportunities and explains the causes behind the emergence of race and class-segregated communities and school districts. INTRODUCTION Historical Background As Carter (1995) and Russo, Harris, and Sandidge (1994) point out, the educational system in the United States historically has failed to provide equal access to all citizens. Evidence of this failure is found, and somewhat explained, in the research literature that points convincingly to a link between the nation's educational and economic systems (Becker, 1964; Bowman, 1991; Weiss, 1995). Such a relationship, by its very nature, inhibits the equality of educational opportunities available to all Americans. For example, as outlined by Bowman (1991), the association between educational attainment and economic status supports the notion that a positive and reciprocal relationship exists between the level of participation in the economic system and level of access to quality education. One underlying premise of the research detailed in the present article is that this linkage has served to disenfranchise the Black American from slavery to citizenship and from past to present. During slavery, the relationship between economic participation and educational opportunity was obvious. Efforts to teach Black slaves to read and write were virtually nonexistent. The slave participated in the economic system not as an individual entity with the rights, privileges, and benefits accorded free citizens but rather as an inanimate cog in the production process at worst and as an agent to a privileged individual at best. Although there were groups such as the Quakers, who extended opportunities to Blacks, the larger society denied slaves personal access to goods and services. If the Black slave's duties required literacy, then, and typically only then, the slaveowner would provide the appropriate training and education. Webber (1978) chronicles such a case in his work on slave education between 1831 and 1865. As he notes: Some few masters appear to have taken an active interest in the education of a select few slaves. J. H. Curry's father was taught to read and write by his master who was a doctor so that he could take the addresses of visiting patients. (p. 132) The end of the Civil War brought large numbers of Blacks to urban areas seeking the American Dream. However, White Americans, including those whose political and military stances brought an end to physical bondage, were not willing to allow Blacks full participation in the economic system. Because of low wages and the intermittent absence of income, the Black residents of the urban centers could afford only the worst of living quarters, and educational opportunities for Black children were still scarce. After the Civil War and during Reconstruction, Blacks played a larger role in the economic organizations and structures. As would be predicted by the relationship between economic and educational participation hypothesized above, Black residents also created and partook of increased educational opportunities. Washington (1901) attests to this phenomenon in personal observations recorded during this era: Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education. …

Physicians With Heart

To the Editor. —Medical News & Perspectives 1 recently ran several articles physicians whose efforts for the medically underserved have made a positive impact. Another such hero is H. Arnold Meyersburg, a psychiatrist in private practice in Kensington, Md. Almost two dozen years ago, as president of a voluntary tutoring group for children from low-income families, he became aware of their difficulty in obtaining health care in affluent Montgomery County, Maryland. Under Dr Meyersburg's leadership, perseverance, and activism, and with help from a few dedicated community leaders, Mobile Medical Care was born after a difficult labor and delivery. In April 1970, its first clinic opened in a church in Ken-Car, a low-income black community, literally on the other side of the railroad tracks. The Ken-Car citizens' association helped coordinate activities, a small foundation donated seed money, the local Red Cross chapter offered supplies and recruited nurse volunteers, and a

A program for the treatment of posthospitalized mental patients in a low-income black community.

An aftercare treatment program was developed and implemented to service posthospitalized mental patients from a low-income black community of more than 33,000 residents. The program was designed and structured for this specific clinical population to meet the individual's mental health needs in most areas of lifefunctioning. Given the lack of adequate follow-up treatment which often characterized poverty areas, the program adopted a multidisciplinary approach to treatment incorporating psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, art therapists, and activity therapists. It was concluded that the multifacet, multidisciplinary program as implemented demonstrates a viable approach for providing services to previously neglected low-income residents in this inner-city predominantly black community.

Delivering Mental Health Services to an Ambulatory, Low-Income Population

The social work and mental health unit of a comprehensive neighborhood health center delivers mental health services in coordination with general health services to ambulatory patients in a predominantly low-income black community. The unit works with other general health, mental health, and social service resources to provide a broad continuum of coordinated care. Services are provided to individuaLs, families, and groups, along with consultation, education, training, and referral. Before the unit was established in July 1971, the patients it serves were seen only for crisis intervention and in emergency rooms and did not have the benefit of a thorough evaluation or follow-up. Staff of the unit now identify potential medical and emotional problems before they reach the crisis stage, and they maintain contact with the patients to ensure that the prescribed regimen is carried out.

Family Functioning in the Low-income Black Community

Social workers should build service programs and create intervention strategies based on the resourcefulness and strengths of black communities and black families