Assessment of Racial Disparities in Mortality Rates Among Older Adults Living in US Rural vs Urban Counties From 1968 to 2016.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ferdows NB
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7399752 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Assessment of Racial Disparities in Mortality Rates Among Older Adults Living in US Rural vs Urban Counties From 1968 to 2016.
Ferdows Nasim B NB Aranda María P MP Baldwin Julie A JA Baghban Ferdows Soroosh S Ahluwalia Jasjit S JS Kumar Amit A
JAMA network open 20200803 8
<h4>Importance</h4>Population-based mortality rates are important indicators of overall health status. Mortality rates may reflect underlying disparities in access to health care, quality of care, racial and geographical variations, and other socioeconomic factors associated with health. However, there is limited information on historical trends in mortality rates between older Black and White adults living in urban compared with rural communities.<h4>Objective</h4>To examine historical trends o ...[more]
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Project description:In this study, we introduce the 'racial opportunity gap' as a place-based measure of structural racism for use in population health research. We first detail constructing the opportunity gap using race-sex specific estimates of intergenerational economic mobility outcomes for a recent cohort. We then illustrate its utility in examining spatial variation in the racial mortality gap. First we demonstrate a correlation between the racial opportunity gap and the racial mortality gap across U.S. counties; where the gap in the adult earnings of black and white children born to families at the same income level is greater so, too, is the gap in mortality. Second, we show in a multivariable framework that the racial opportunity gap is associated with the racial mortality gap net of differences in the socioeconomic composition of the two groups. In so doing, we aim to provide population health researchers with a new empirical tool and analytic framework for examining the role of structural racism in generating racial health disparities.
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