UNT Dallas Library: Racism &amp; Social Injustice: Statistics &amp; Data

Academic Articles

Antiracism Expanding Social Work Education: A Qualitative Analysis of the Undoing Racism Workshop Experience. The importance of addressing implications of racism has reached a critical point at colleges and universities across the United States, and schools of social work are no exception. This study uses grounded theory methods to thematically analyze data from student participants (N=30) on their thoughts and reactions during a 2 1/2-day Undoing Racism workshop sponsored by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Qualitative data were collected to answer the research question, How do students experience an intensive Undoing Racism workshop, and what are the implications for integrating antiracism into social work education? Findings imply that workshop-based learning may be more effective than solely using course content to teach antiracism material and also indicate the importance of activity-based learning, as well as an emphasis on developing concrete strategies to combat racism.
Are Achievement Gaps Related to Discipline Gaps? Evidence from National Data There is growing interest in the relation between the racial achievement gap and the racial discipline gap. However, few studies have examined this relation at the national level. This study combines data from the Stanford Education Data Archive and the Civil Rights Data Collection and employs a district fixed effects analysis to examine whether and the extent to which racial discipline gaps are related to racial achievement gaps in Grades 3 through 8 in districts across the United States. In bivariate models, we find evidence that districts with larger racial discipline gaps have larger racial achievement gaps (and vice versa). Though other district-level differences account for the positive association between the Hispanic-White discipline gap and the Hispanic-White achievement gap, we find robust evidence that the positive association between the Black-White discipline gap and the Black-White achievement gap persists after controlling for a multitude of confounding factors. We also find evidence that the mechanisms connecting achievement to disciplinary outcomes are more salient for Black than White students.
Association of Racial Bias With Burnout Among Resident Physicians. Importance: Burnout, a syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a decreased sense of efficacy, is common among resident physicians, and negative emotional states may increase the expression of prejudices, which are associated with racial disparities in health care. Whether racial bias varies by symptoms of burnout among resident physicians is unknown. Objective: To assess the association between burnout and explicit and implicit racial biases toward black people in resident physicians. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study obtained data from surveys completed by first-year medical students and resident physicians in the United States as part of the Cognitive Habits and Growth Evaluation Study. Participants were followed up from enrollment in 2010 to 2011 through 2017. Participants completed questionnaires at year 4 of medical school as well as at the second and third years of residency. Only data from resident physicians who self-identified as belonging to a racial group other than black (n = 3392) were included in the analyses because of scarce evidence of racial bias in the care provided to black patients by black physicians. Resident physicians training in radiology or pathology were excluded because they provided less direct patient interaction. Main Outcomes and Measures: Burnout symptoms were measured by 2 single-item measures from the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Explicit attitudes about white and black people were measured by a feeling thermometer (FT, from 0 to 100 points, ranging from very cold or unfavorable [lowest score] to very warm or favorable [highest score]; included in the second-year [R2] and third-year [R3] questionnaires). The R2 Questionnaire included a racial Implicit Association Test (IAT; range: -2 to 2). Results: Among the 3392 nonblack resident physician respondents, 1693 (49.9%) were male, 1964 (57.9%) were younger than 30 years, and 2362 (69.6%) self-identified as belonging to the white race. In this cohort, 1529 of 3380 resident physicians (45.2%) had symptoms of burnout and 1394 of 3377 resident physicians (41.3%) had depression. From this group, 12 did not complete the burnout items and 15 did not complete the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) items. The mean (SD) FT score toward black people was 77.9 (21.0) and toward white people was 81.1 (20.1), and the mean (SD) racial IAT score was 0.4 (0.4). Burnout at the R2 Questionnaire time point was associated with greater explicit and implicit racial biases. In multivariable analyses adjusting for demographics, specialty, depression, and FT scores toward white people, resident physicians with burnout had greater explicit racial bias (difference in FT score, -2.40; 95% CI, -3.42 to -1.37; P
Black/White disparities in pregnant women in the United States: An examination of risk factors associated with Black/White racial identity. Abstract: This paper explores racial disparities and risk factors of adverse pregnancy outcomes in Black and White pregnant women in the US. The study uses a cross‐sectional approach to explore Black and White disparities using data from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which collects interview data from approximately 70,000 randomly selected participants. We included several self‐reported conditions that we categorised as individual and social stressors (e.g. measures of institutionalised racism, individual health behaviours, access to quality care and social context factors). We used descriptive statistics, univariate and multivariate analyses in risk factors of adverse pregnancy outcomes between Black and White women. Black women who were pregnant had a lower socioeconomic status and experienced more measures of institutionalised racism compared to White women who were pregnant. More white women who were pregnant were married, had higher levels of educational attainment, higher income levels, and greater employment opportunities. White pregnant women also had higher levels of private health insurance and less dependency on government programmes for access to healthcare. Results from the regressions indicated that Black pregnant women were less likely to be married (OR = 0.01), less likely to have higher income levels (OR = 0.31) and less likely to be employed (OR = 0.52). However, Black pregnant women were more likely to be younger (OR = 1.82). For the health‐eroding behaviours, Black pregnant women were less likely to smoke (OR = 0.53) and use alcohol (0.52). After assessing the SES Household‐level stressors (access to healthcare), Black pregnant women were more likely to have Medicaid/CHIP (OR = 3.21) and health coverage through government assistant programmes (OR = 3.80); however, less likely to have private health insurance (OR = 0.38). There are differences in risk factors of adverse pregnancy outcomes between White and Black pregnant women based on measures of individual level/social stressors, institutionalised racism, health behaviours and access to care.
A Decade of Disproportionality: A State-Level Analysis of African American Students Enrolled in the Primary Disability Category of Speech or Language Impairment. Purpose: This study aimed to determine if African American students were disproportionately represented between the years of 2004 and 2014 in the primary disability category of Speech or Language Impairment (S/LI) under the 2004 reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. Method: S/LI enrollment data from the Office of Special Education Programs and general enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics were analyzed to compare the risk of primary S/LI category enrollment of African American students to that of all other students. Risk ratios with 99% confidence intervals were calculated for each state across the 10 years studied. Results: An average of 75% of states disproportionately represented African American students in the S/LI category each year; on average, 62% underrepresented African American students, and 14% overrepresented them. A post hoc analysis of the relationship between African American student representation and population densities revealed that states with high African American population densities almost exclusively underrepresented African American students and states with low densities tended toward a proportionate representation. Conclusions: African American students were largely underrepresented in the category of S/LI in the years studied. These findings, alongside historic and chronic overrepresentation in other categories of special education, are discussed in the context of the fragmented harm theory (Payne, 1984; Voulgarides, 2018; Voulgarides, Zwerger, & Noguera, 2013) and the disability rights and critical race theory (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013).
Determinants of Variation in State Concealed Carry Laws, 1970–2016. Why do some U.S. states have more permissive concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws than other states? To answer this question, this study tests several plausible social, political, and economic factors thought to affect the likelihood of this outcome over several decades. Models estimated using random‐effects ordered logistic regression reveal that theoretical accounts based on partisan politics, gendered politics, economic threat, and racial threat largely explain variation in CCW laws over time. Tests for interactions, however, reveal that the influence of gubernatorial politics varies according to Republican strength in the legislature and by region. Also, the impact of racial threat on CCW laws is dependent on the crime rate. Overall, this research advances the literature by simultaneously assessing all plausible state‐level CCW policies, incorporating novel threat and political predictors, and utilizing a larger sample size than prior studies.
Discrimination, Mental Disorders, and Suicidal Ideation in Latino Adults: Decomposing the Effects of Discrimination. Experiences of discrimination and mental disorder have been recognized as risks for suicidality. Yet, few studies have examined the direct and indirect effects of discrimination on suicidal ideation through mental disorder among Latino adults in the U.S. This study aimed to examine whether everyday discrimination and racial/ethnic discrimination is associated with suicidal ideation and if mental disorder (i.e., DSM-IV depressive, anxiety, and substance use) mediates the association. Discrimination was operationalized with self-reported discriminatory experience. This study applied a mediation analysis to the data from National Latino and Asian American Survey, 2002-2003. The key findings are: (a) everyday discrimination had an independent association with suicidal ideation as well as exerted an indirect effect through anxiety disorder. (b) Racial/ethnic discrimination was not directly associated with suicidal ideation, but its adverse effect on suicidal ideation was mediated by the depressive disorder. (c) Three types of mental disorder together accounted for approximately 32 and 42% of the impact of everyday discrimination and racial/ethnic discrimination on suicidal ideation, respectively.
Discrimination in the United States: Experiences of Black Americans. Objective: To examine experiences of racial discrimination among black adults in the United States, which broadly contribute to their poor health outcomes. Data Source and Study Design: Data come from a nationally representative, probability-based telephone survey including 802 non-Hispanic black and a comparison group of 902 non-Hispanic white US adults, conducted January-April 2017. Methods: We calculated the percent of blacks reporting discrimination in several domains, including health care. We used logistic regression to compare the black-white difference in odds of discrimination, and among blacks only to examine variation by socioeconomic status, gender, and neighborhood racial composition. Principal Findings: About one-third of blacks (32 percent) reported experiencing discrimination in clinical encounters, while 22 percent avoided seeking health care for themselves or family members due to anticipated discrimination. A majority of black adults reported experiencing discrimination in employment (57 percent in obtaining equal pay/promotions; 56 percent in applying for jobs), police interactions (60 percent reported being stopped/unfairly treated by police), and hearing microaggressions (52 percent) and racial slurs (51 percent). In adjusted models, blacks had significantly higher odds than whites of reporting discrimination in every domain. Among blacks, having a college degree was associated with higher odds of experiencing overall institutional discrimination. Conclusions: The extent of reported discrimination across several areas of life suggests a broad pattern of discrimination against blacks in America, beyond isolated experiences. Black-white disparities exist on nearly all dimensions of experiences with public and private institutions, including health care and the police. Evidence of systemic discrimination suggests a need for more active institutional interventions to address racism in policy and practice.
Discrimination in the United States: Experiences of Latinos. Objective: To examine experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination among Latinos in the United States, which broadly contribute to their poor health outcomes. Data Source and Study Design: Data come from a nationally representative, probability-based telephone survey including 803 Latinos and a comparison group of 902 non-Hispanic white US adults, conducted January-April 2017. Methods: We calculated the percent of Latinos reporting discrimination in several domains, including health care. We used logistic regression to compare the Latino-white difference in odds of discrimination, and among Latinos only to examine variation by socioeconomic status and country of birth. Principal Findings: One in five Latinos (20 percent) reported experiencing discrimination in clinical encounters, while 17 percent avoided seeking health care for themselves or family members due to anticipated discrimination. A notable share of Latinos also reported experiencing discrimination with employment (33 percent applying for jobs; 32 percent obtaining equal pay/promotions), housing (31 percent), and police interactions (27 percent). In adjusted models, Latinos had significantly higher odds than whites for reporting discrimination in health care visits (OR: 3.18, 95% CI: 1.61, 6.26) and across several other domains. Latinos with college degrees had significantly higher odds of reporting discrimination in multiple domains than those without college degrees, with few differences between foreign-born and US-born Latinos. Conclusions: Latinos in the United States report experiencing widespread discrimination in health care and other areas of their lives, at significantly higher levels than whites. Being born in the United States and earning a college degree are not protective against discrimination, suggesting that further health and social policy efforts to eliminate discrimination are needed.
Discrimination in the United States: Experiences of Native Americans. Objective: To examine reported racial discrimination and harassment against Native Americans, which broadly contribute to poor health outcomes. Data Source and Study Design: Data come from a nationally representative, probability-based telephone survey including 342 Native American and 902 white US adults, conducted January-April 2017. Methods: We calculated the percent of Native Americans reporting discrimination in several domains, including health care. We used logistic regression to compare the Native American-white difference in odds of discrimination and conducted exploratory analyses among Native Americans only to examine variation by socioeconomic and geographic/neighborhood characteristics. Principal Findings: More than one in five Native Americans (23 percent) reported experiencing discrimination in clinical encounters, while 15 percent avoided seeking health care for themselves or family members due to anticipated discrimination. A notable share of Native Americans also reported they or family members have experienced violence (38 percent) or have been threatened or harassed (34 percent). In adjusted models, Native Americans had higher odds than whites of reporting discrimination across several domains, including health care and interactions with the police/courts. In exploratory analyses, the association between geographic/neighborhood characteristics and discrimination among Native Americans was mixed. Conclusions: Discrimination and harassment are widely reported by Native Americans across multiple domains of their lives, regardless of geographic or neighborhood context. Native Americans report major disparities compared to whites in fair treatment by institutions, particularly with health care and police/courts. Results suggest modern forms of discrimination and harassment against Native Americans are systemic and untreated problems.
Discrimination in the United States: Perspectives for the Future. Objective: To summarize findings from this Special Issue, which examine reported experiences of discrimination among six underrepresented groups in public opinion research-blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) adults, and women. Data Source and Study Design: Data come from a nationally representative, probability-based telephone survey of 3453 US adults, conducted January-April 2017. Methods: We calculated the percent of adults reporting discrimination in several domains, including health care. Principal Findings: In health care encounters, 32 percent of black adults reported discrimination, as did 23 percent of Native Americans, 20 percent of Latinos, 18 percent of women, 16 percent of LGBTQ adults, and 13 percent of Asian Americans. Significant shares also reported experiencing racial, gender, or LGBTQ identity-based violence against themselves or family members, including 51 percent of LGBTQ adults, 42 percent of blacks, 38 percent of Native Americans, and 21 percent of women. At least one in seven blacks (22 percent), LGBTQ adults (18 percent), Latinos (17 percent), and Native Americans (15 percent) reported avoiding health care for themselves or family members over concerns of anticipated discrimination or unfair treatment. Conclusions: Taken together, this polling effort illustrates the significant and widespread level of discrimination against many groups in America today, as well as the complex manifestation of these experiences across different groups and different areas of life. While it is beyond the scope of these results to make specific recommendations for how to end discrimination in each area of life we studied, this Special Issue provides important evidence that more research and practice on discrimination are sorely needed in health services research.
Does the Race/Ethnicity or Gender of a Physician's Name Impact Patient Selection of the Physician? This study's objective was to examine the extent to which individuals exhibit a preference for physicians based upon the race/ethnicity and gender of a physician's name. We conducted an online survey of 915 adults, who viewed a comparative display of four physicians' quality performance. We randomized the name of one physician, whose quality performance was equal to that of one physician and better than two other physicians, to be either typically African American male, African American female, white male, white female, or Middle Eastern (gender ambiguous). In regression models, participants more frequently selected the physician with the randomized name when displayed with a white male name, compared to when presented with an African American male, African American female, or Middle Eastern name (ORs ranging from .59 to .64). White and male study participants exhibited this pattern, while racial/ethnic minority participants did not. If the hypothetical choice bias observed here translates to people's actual selection of physicians, it could be a contributing factor for why women and racial/ethnic minority physicians have lower incomes than white male physicians.
Is Social Work Still Racist? A Content Analysis of Recent Literature. Addressing systems of oppression that disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minoritized groups appears to be of marginal interest in social work's professional literature. This article describes the content analysis of articles on Asian Pacific Islander (API) Americans, African Americans, Latinx or Hispanic Americans, and Native or Indigenous Americans in four major social work journals published between 2005 and 2015. (The analysis serves to update a 1992 article by Anthony McMahon and Paula Allen-Meares that examined literature between 1980 and 1989.) Of the 1,690 articles published in Child Welfare, Research on Social Work Practice, Social Service Review, and Social Work over an 11-year period, only 123 met the criteria for inclusion. Findings suggest that social work researchers are still failing to address institutional racism and are relying heavily on micro-level interventions when working with minoritized groups. Social workers need to increase efforts to dismantle institutional racism.
Methodology of the Discrimination in the United States survey Objective: To describe survey methods used to examine reported experiences of discrimination against African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, women, and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) adults. Data Source and Study Design: Data came from a nationally representative, probability-based telephone survey of 3453 US adults, conducted January-April 2017. Methods: We examined the survey instrument, sampling design, and weighting of the survey, and present selected survey findings. Principal Findings: Examining reported discrimination experienced by multiple groups in a telephone survey requires attention to details of sampling and weighting. In health care settings, 32 percent of African Americans reported discrimination, as did 23 percent of Native Americans, 20 percent of Latinos, 18 percent of women, 16 percent of LGBTQ adults, and 13 percent of Asian Americans. Also, 51 percent of LGBTQ adults, 42 percent of African Americans, and 38 percent of Native Americans reported identity-based violence against themselves or family members; 57 percent of African Americans and 41 percent of women reported discrimination in pay or promotions; 50 percent of African Americans, 29 percent of Native Americans, and 27 percent of Latinos reported being discriminated against in interactions with police. Conclusions: Even the small selection of results presented in this article as examples of survey measures show a pattern of substantial reported discrimination against all six groups studied. (© 2019 The Authors. Health Services Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Health Research and Educational Trust.)
Negative Police Encounters and Police Avoidance as Pathways to Depressive Symptoms Among US Black Men, 2015-2016. Objectives. To examine negative police encounters and police avoidance as mediators of incarceration history and depressive symptoms among US Black men and to assess the role of unemployment as a moderator of these associations. Methods. Data were derived from the quantitative phase of Menhood, a 2015-2016 study based in Washington, DC. Participants were 891 Black men, 18 to 44 years of age, who completed computer surveys. We used moderated mediation to test the study's conceptual model. Results. The results showed significant indirect effects of incarceration history on depressive symptoms via negative police encounters and police avoidance. Unemployment moderated the indirect effect via police avoidance. Participants with a history of incarceration who were unemployed reported significantly higher police avoidance and, in turn, higher depressive symptoms. Moderation of unemployment on the indirect effect via negative police encounters was not significant. Conclusions. There is a critical need to broaden research on the health impact of mass incarceration to include other aspects of criminal justice involvement (e.g., negative police encounters and police avoidance) that negatively affect Black men's mental health.
On the prevalence of racial discrimination in the United States. Boutwell, Nedelec, Winegard, Shackelford, Beaver, Vaughn, Barnes, & Wright (2017) published an article in this journal that interprets data from the Add Health dataset as showing that only one-quarter of individuals in the United States experience discrimination. In Study 1, we attempted to replicate Boutwell et al.'s findings using a more direct measure of discrimination. Using data from the Pew Research Center, we examined a large sample of American respondents (N = 3,716) and explored the prevalence of discrimination experiences among various racial groups. Our findings stand in contrast to Boutwell et al.'s estimates, revealing that between 50% and 75% of Black, Hispanic, and Asian respondents (depending on the group and analytic approach) reported discriminatory treatment. In Study 2, we explored whether question framing affected how participants responded to Boutwell's question about experiencing less respect and courtesy. Regardless of question framing, non-White participants reported more experiences than White participants. Further, there was an interaction of participant race and question framing such that when participants were asked about experiences of less respect or courtesy broadly, there were no differences between non-White participants and White participants, but when they were asked about experiences that were specifically race-based, non-White participants reported more experiences than White participants. The current research provides a counterweight to the claim that discrimination is not a prevalent feature of the lives of minority groups and the serious implications this claim poses for research and public policy.
Perceived Racial Discrimination and Pain Intensity/Disability Among Economically Disadvantaged Latinos in a Federally Qualified Health Center: The Role of Anxiety Sensitivity. The present study examined the role of anxiety sensitivity (AS; fear of the negative consequences of anxiety) in the relation between perceived racial discrimination and pain-related problems among Latinos seeking health services at a Federally Qualified Health Center. Participants included 145 adult Latinos (87.80% female, M age = 38.07 years, SD = 11.98, and 96.2% reported Spanish as their first language). Results indicated that perceived racial discrimination was indirectly related to the pain intensity and pain disability through AS. These effects were evident above and beyond the variance accounted for by gender, age, marital status, educational status, employment status, years living in the United States, and number of axis I diagnoses. Overall, the present findings highlight the merit in focusing further scientific attention on the interplay between perceived racial discrimination and AS to better understand and inform interventions to reduce pain problems among Latinos in primary care.
Race as a dynamic state: triangulation in health care Praised for their so-called “Confucian work ethic”, perceived sense of personal responsibility, and low rates of engagement with law enforcement, Asian Americans have been labelled with the term “model minority”. Given the extensive time span of institutionalised racism and its consistently negative frame, its effects on Black people in the USA have been the most significant of any racial group, in terms of health outcomes, inherited wealth, and mass incarceration. Due to the effects of generational poverty and low-quality education, Black grade school students often have minimal exposure to physicians who like look them.
Racial discrimination and alcohol use and negative drinking consequences among Black Americans: a meta‐analytical review. Background and Aims: Findings of the association between racial discrimination and alcohol use and related consequences are inconsistent, and the role of potential moderators in the association is largely unknown. This meta‐analysis aimed to synthesize the discrimination–alcohol literature among Black Americans, estimate the magnitude of associations and explore differences as a function of sample characteristics. Methods: Empirical studies reporting the association of racial discrimination with alcohol‐related behaviors in an all‐black sample were identified via systematic literature search. A random‐effects meta‐analysis was conducted using 33 effect sizes extracted from 27 studies, all of which used US samples (n = 26 894). Results: Significant positive associations were found for racial discrimination with alcohol consumption [k = 9, confidence interval (CI) = 0.08, 0.17, I2 = 49%, r = 0.12], heavy/binge drinking (k = 12, CI = 0.02, 0.10), I2 = 27%, r = 0.06), at‐risk drinking (k = 4, CI = 0.06, 0.23, I2 = 0%, r = 0.14) and negative drinking consequences (k = 5, CI = 0.09, 0.25, I2 = 94%, r = 0.25), but not with alcohol use disorder (k = 3, CI = −0.01, 0.20, I2 = 90%, r = 0.10). Only alcohol consumption and negative drinking consequences showed significant between‐study heterogeneity and had a sufficient quantity of studies for moderation analysis (i.e., 4 or more studies). The positive association of racial discrimination with negative drinking consequences was stronger among younger samples; the association with alcohol consumption did not differ by age or proportion of men. Conclusions: Experiences of racial discrimination are associated with diverse alcohol‐related behaviors among Black Americans, with a stronger association with problematic alcohol use, particularly among younger individuals.
Racial disparities in school-based disciplinary actions are associated with county-level rates of racial bias. There are substantial gaps in educational outcomes between black and white students in the United States. Recently, increased attention has focused on differences in the rates at which black and white students are disciplined, finding that black students are more likely to be seen as problematic and more likely to be punished than white students are for the same offense. Although these disparities suggest that racial biases are a contributor, no previous research has shown associations with psychological measurements of bias and disciplinary outcomes. We show that county-level estimates of racial bias, as measured using data from approximately 1.6 million visitors to the Project Implicit website, are associated with racial disciplinary disparities across approximately 96,000 schools in the United States, covering around 32 million white and black students. These associations do not extend to sexuality biases, showing the specificity of the effect. These findings suggest that acknowledging that racial biases and racial disparities in education go hand-in-hand may be an important step in resolving both of these social ills.
Racism and Health: Evidence and Needed Research. In recent decades, there has been remarkable growth in scientific research examining the multiple ways in which racism can adversely affect health. This interest has been driven in part by the striking persistence of racial/ethnic inequities in health and the empirical evidence that indicates that socioeconomic factors alone do not account for racial/ethnic inequities in health. Racism is considered a fundamental cause of adverse health outcomes for racial/ethnic minorities and racial/ethnic inequities in health. This article provides an overview of the evidence linking the primary domains of racism-structural racism, cultural racism, and individual-level discrimination-to mental and physical health outcomes. For each mechanism, we describe key findings and identify priorities for future research. We also discuss evidence for interventions to reduce racism and describe research needed to advance knowledge in this area.
Reducing racial inequalities in adulthood arrest by reducing inequalities in school discipline: Evidence from the school-to-prison pipeline. There is a large body of evidence revealing that minorities-in particular, Black citizens-are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. But the causes of these inequalities have been difficult to pin down. One line of work suggests the inequalities in arrest may be traced to inequalities in exposure to school discipline. Specifically, the school-to-prison pipeline literature suggests inequalities in school disciplinary practices may go on to produce inequalities in arrest prevalence. In this article, we draw on a large nationally representative sample to test the hypothesis that racial inequalities in school-based punishments will (partially) explain inequalities in adulthood arrest. We find support for this pathway and, by drawing on recent developments in epidemiology, produce initial estimates of the degree to which policymakers might be able to close the racial gap in arrest if it were possible to close the racial gap in school discipline.
The Relationship between Racial Residential Segregation and Black-White Disparities in Fatal Police Shootings at the City Level, 2013-2017. Background: Although there is a disparity in the rates of fatal police shootings of Black victims compared to White victims throughout the nation, the magnitude of this racial disparity varies widely between cities. Examining the reasons behind this vast variation in the racial disparity in fatal police shootings across different localities could be helpful in identifying the underlying causes of this problem. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess potential causes of the Black-White racial disparities in police shootings at the city level. Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, we examined the relationship between the level of racial residential segregation in a city and the ratio of the rates of fatal police shootings of Black people compared to White people within that city during the period 2013-2017, using data from 69 of the largest cities in the United States. Using linear regression analysis, we modeled the ratio of Black to White fatal police shooting rates as a function of the level of racial segregation in each city as measured by the index of dissimilarity calculated at the Census block level. We controlled for several factors at the city level that might be expected to influence the rate of police shootings by race/ethnicity, including the level of deprivation of the Black population in economic status, the degree of Black representation in the city's police force, the relative size of the police force, crime rates, racial composition of the city, and city population. Results: The level of racial residential segregation was significantly associated with the racial disparity in fatal police shooting rates. For each one standard deviation increase in the index of dissimilarity, the ratio of Black to White fatal police shooting rates increased by 44.4% (95% confidence interval, 17.1%-71.7%). Conclusions: Racial residential segregation is a significant predictor of the magnitude of the Black-White disparity in fatal police shootings at the city level. Efforts to ameliorate the problem of fatal police violence must move beyond the individual level and consider the interaction between law enforcement officers and the neighborhoods that they police.
The Role of Racial Residential Segregation in Black-White Disparities in Firearm Homicide at the State Level in the United States, 1991-2015. Objective: To investigate the relationship between racial residential segregation and differences in Black-White disparities in overall firearm homicides across U.S states. Methods: Using a linear regression, we evaluated the relationship between racial residential segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, and the Black-White firearm homicide disparity ratio in 32 states over the period 1991-2015. To account for clustering of observations within states, we used a generalized estimating equations approach. Results: After controlling for measures of White and Black deprivation, multivariate analysis showed that racial segregation was positively associated with the Black-White firearm homicide disparity. For each 10-point increase in the index of dissimilarity, the ratio of Black to White firearm homicide rates in a state increased by 39%. After controlling for levels of White and Black deprivation, racial segregation remained negatively associated with White firearm homicide rates and positively associated with Black firearm homicide rates. Conclusions: These findings suggest that racial segregation may increase the disparity in firearm homicide between the Black and White population.
Students of color show health advantages when they attend schools that emphasize the value of diversity. As the United States becomes more diverse, the ways in which mainstream institutions recognize and address race and ethnicity will be increasingly important. Here, we show that one novel and salient characteristic of an institutional environment, that is, whether a school emphasizes the value of racial and ethnic diversity, predicts better cardiometabolic health among adolescents of color. Using a diverse sample of adolescents who attend more than 100 different schools in predominantly urban locations, we find that when schools emphasize the value of diversity (operationalized as mentioning diversity in their mission statements), students of color, but not white students, have lower values on a composite of five biomarkers of inflammation, have less insulin resistance and compensatory β-cell activity, and have fewer metabolic syndrome signs and score lower on a continuous metabolic syndrome composite. These results suggest that institutions that emphasize diversity may play an unacknowledged role in protecting the health of people of color and, thus, may be a site for future interventions to reduce health disparities.
True Colors: Crime, Race and Colorblindness Revisited The violent, racially motivated events of the Charlottesville rally unleashed demons that many Americans believed were long buried. Old Jim Crow-inspired racism came straight through the front door. Yet critics of colorblind policies were not surprised. For them, such an eruption of racial hatred manifested what they had repeatedly argued: colorblind policies neither alter racial predispositions nor affect the unequal treatment of minorities in the United States. In fact, colorblindness has given rise to a modern, latent type of racism. This Article empirically investigates this claim in an unexplored context--the media's colorblind, crime-related coverage policies. Utilizing a novel dataset spanning ten years of crime coverage under the media's colorblind policy contrasted with national and state-level crime statistics, this longitudinal study complicates the controversy around colorblindness. First, while explicit racial references in crime reports declined, they were replaced by implicit racial cues, primarily by the use of visuals. Second, racial schemas in the criminal context prevailed with unbalanced representations of black and white perpetrators compared to real crime statistics, both at the local and national level. Through these findings, this Article adds a new dimension to the scholarship on the indivisibility between race and crime in an era of colorblindness. It offers the incognizant liberal trap as a conceptual framework to engage with these findings, and an explanation for the failure of liberal news outlets to combat racially distorted narratives. This Article calls for an "affirmative action" in crime coverage to combat institutional inertia and to allow counter-stereotypical racial schemas to take hold. More broadly, this Article sheds light on the potential links between crime reports and persistent inequalities in the criminal justice system.

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Racism & Social Injustice: Statistics & Data

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