Hostname: page-component-6587cd75c8-gglxz Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-04-24T09:17:20.649Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

RACE/ETHNICITY AND U.S. ADULT MORTALITY

Progress, Prospects, and New Analyses1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2011

Robert A. Hummer  and
Juanita J. Chinn
Robert A. Hummer*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
Juanita J. Chinn
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
*
Robert A. Hummer, Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, G1800, Austin, Texas 78752. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although there have been significant decreases in U.S. mortality rates, racial/ethnic disparities persist. The goals of this study are to: (1) elucidate a conceptual framework for the study of racial/ethnic differences in U.S. adult mortality, (2) estimate current racial/ethnic differences in adult mortality, (3) examine empirically the extent to which measures of socioeconomic status and other risk factors impact the mortality differences across groups, and (4) utilize findings to inform the policy community with regard to eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in mortality. Relative Black-White differences are modestly narrower when compared to a decade or so ago, but remain very wide. The majority of the Black-White adult mortality gap can be accounted for by measures of socioeconomic resources that reflect the historical and continuing significance of racial socioeconomic stratification. Further, when controlling for socioeconomic resources, Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants exhibit significantly lower mortality risk than non-Hispanic Whites. Without aggressive efforts to create equality in socioeconomic and social resources, Black-White disparities in mortality will remain wide, and mortality among the Mexican-origin population will remain higher than what would be the case if that population achieved socioeconomic equality with Whites.

Keywords

RaceEthnicityMortalityHealth DisparitiesAfrican AmericansMexican AmericansSocioeconomic Status
Type
Current Status and Priorities
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 8 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Racial Inequality and Health , Spring 2011 , pp. 5 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

1

This research was supported by infrastructure grants 5 T32 HD007081, Training Program in Population Studies, and 5 R24 HD042849, Population Research Center, both awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We also gratefully acknowledge support provided by a research grant from the National Institute for Minority and Health Disparities, 1 R01MD00425, principal investigator, Brian K. Finch.

References

REFERENCES

Acevedo-Garcia, D., Pan, J., Jun, H., Osypuk, T. L., and Emmons, K. M. (2005). The Effect of Immigrant Generation on Smoking. Social Science and Medicine, 61: 1223–1242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Allison, P. (1984). Event History Analysis: Regression for Longitudinal Event Data. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, E. and Massey, D. S. (Eds.) (2001). Problem of the Century: Racial Stratification in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Arias, E., Eschbach, K., Schauman, W. S., Backlund, E. L., and Sorlie, P. D. (2010). The Hispanic Mortality Advantage and Ethnic Misclassification on U.S. Death Certificates. American Journal of Public Health, 100(S1): S171–S177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without Racists: Color Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Borrell, L. N. and Crawford, N. D. (2009). All-Cause Mortality among Hispanics in the United States: Exploring Heterogeneity by Nativity Status, Country of Origin, and Race in the National Health Interview Survey-Linked Mortality Files. Annals of Epidemiology, 19: 336–343.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burton, L. M. and Tucker, M. B. (2009). Romantic Unions in an Era of Uncertainty: A Post-Moynihan Perspective on African American Women and Marriage. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Research, 621: 132–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, R. (1984). A Note on the Biological Concept of Race and Its Application in Epidemiological Research. American Heart Journal, 108: 715–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellison, C. G., Hummer, R. A., Cormier, S., and Rogers, R. G. (2000). Religious Involvement and Mortality Risk among African American Adults. Research on Aging, 22: 630–667.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elo, I. T. and Drevenstedt, G. L. (2004). Cause-specific Contributions to Black-White Differences in Male Mortality from 1960 to 1995. Demographic Research, Special Collection 2, Article 10: 255–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feagin, J. R. (2001). Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feliciano, C. (2005). Educational Selectivity in U.S. Immigration: How Do Immigrants Compare to Those Left Behind? Demography, 42: 131–152.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frank, R., Akresh, I. R., and Lu, B. (2010). Latino Immigrants and the U.S. Racial Order: How and Where Do They Fit In? American Sociological Review, 75: 378–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franks, P., Muennig, P., Lubetkin, E., and Jia, H. (2006). The Burden of Disease Associated with Being African-American in the United States and the Contribution of Socio-economic Status. Social Science and Medicine, 62: 2469–2478.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harper, S., Lynch, J., Burris, S., Smith, G. D. (2007). Trends in the Black-White Life Expectancy Gap in the United States, 1983–2003. Journal of the American Medical Association, 297: 1224–1232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Healthy People 2010. (2010). Executive Summary: Goal 2: Eliminate Health Disparities. ⟨http://www.healthypeople.gov/Data/midcourse/html/execsummary/Goal2.htm⟩ (Accessed January 2010).Google Scholar
House, J. S., Schoeni, R. F., Kaplan, G. A., and Pollack, H. (2008). The Health Effects of Social and Economic Policy: The Promise and Challenge for Research and Policy. In Schoeni, R. F., House, J. S., Kaplan, G. A., and Pollack, H. (Eds.), Making Americans Healthier: Social and Economic Policy as Health Policy, pp. 3–26. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Hummer, R. A. (1996). Black-White Differences in Health and Mortality: A Review and Conceptual Model. The Sociological Quarterly, 37(1): 105–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hummer, R. A., Benjamins, M. R., and Rogers, R. G. (2004). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Mortality among the U.S. Elderly Population. In Anderson, N. B., Bulatao, R. A., and Cohen, B. (Eds.), Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life, pp. 53–94. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Hummer, R. A. and Hamilton, E. R. (2010). Race and Ethnicity and Fragile Families. Future of Children, 20(2): 113–132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hummer, R. A., Rogers, R. G., Nam, C. B., and LeClere, F. B.. (1999). Race/Ethnicity, Nativity, and U.S. Adult Mortality. Social Science Quarterly, 80: 136–153.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. S., Hudson, D., Kershaw, K., Mezuk, B., Rafferty, J., and Tuttle, K. K. (2011). Discrimination, Chronic Stress, and Mortality among Black Americans: A Life-Course Framework. In Rogers, R. G. and Crimmins, E. M. (Eds.), International Handbook of Adult Mortality, Chapter 15. New York: Springer Publishers (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Kaplan, G. A., Ranjit, N., and Burgard, S. A. (2008). Lifting Gates, Lengthening Lives: Did Civil Rights Policies Improve the Health of African American Women in the 1960s and 1970s? In Schoeni, R. F., House, J. S., Kaplan, G. A., and Pollack, H. (Eds.), Making Americans Healthier: Social and Economic Policy as Health Policy, pp. 145–170. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Kochhar, R. (2004). The Wealth of Hispanic Households: 1996 to 2002. Pew Hispanic Center Report. Washington, DC: The Pew Research Center. Available at ⟨www.pewhispanic.org⟩.Google Scholar
Levine, R. S., Foster, J. E., Fullilove, R. E., Fullilove, M. T., Briggs, N. C., Hull, P. C., Husaini, B. A., and Hennekens, C. H. (2001). Black-White Inequalities in Mortality and Life Expectancy, 1933–1999: Implications for Healthy People 2010. Public Health Reports, 116: 474–483.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lopez-Gonzalez, L., Aravena, V., and Hummer, R. A. (2005). Immigrant Acculturation, Gender, and Health Behavior: A Research Note. Social Forces, 84: 581–593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macinko, J. and Elo, I. T. (2009). Black-White Differences in Avoidable Mortality in the USA, 1980–2005. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 63: 715–721.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markides, K. S. and Coreil, J. (1986). The Health of Southwestern Hispanics: An Epidemiologic Paradox. Public Health Reports, 101: 253–265.Google ScholarPubMed
Markides, K. S. and Eschbach, K. (2011). Hispanic Paradox in Adult Mortality in the United States. In Rogers, R. G. and Crimmins, E. M. (Eds.) International Handbook of Adult Mortality, Chapter 14. New York: Springer Publishers (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Massey, D. S. (2008). Foreword. In Rodriguez, H., Saenz, R., and Menjivar, C. (Eds.) Latinas/os in the United States: Changing the Face of America, pp. xi–xiii. New York: Springer Publishers.Google Scholar
McLanahan, S. S. (2009). Fragile Families and the Reproduction of Poverty. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 621: 111–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miniño, A. M., Xu, J., Kochanek, K. D., Tejada-Vera, B. (2009). Death in the United States, 2007. National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief, 26: December.Google Scholar
Nam, C. B. (1995). Another Look at Mortality Crossovers. Social Biology, 42: 133–142.Google Scholar
National Center for Health Statistics (2009). The National Health Interview Survey (1986–2004) Linked Mortality Files, Mortality Follow-Up Through 2006: Matching Methodology. Hyattsville, MD. Available at: ⟨http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/datalinkage/matching_methodology_nhis_final.pdf⟩.Google Scholar
National Center for Health Statistics (2010). Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, Public-use National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality Files, 2010. Hyattsville, Maryland. Available at: ⟨http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/data_linkage/mortality/nhis_linkage_public_use.htm⟩ (Accessed June 2010).Google Scholar
Office of Management and Budget (1997). Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting. Statistical Policy Directive 15, U.S. Government.Google Scholar
Oliver, M. L. and Shapiro, T. M. (2006). Black Wealth/White Wealth, 2ed.New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Palloni, A. and Arias, E. (2004). Paradox Lost: Explaining the Hispanic Adult Mortality Advantage. Demography, 41(3): 385–415.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pew Hispanic Center (2010). Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2008. Washington, DC: The Pew Hispanic Center. Available at: ⟨http://pewhispanic.org/factsheets/factsheet.php?FactsheetID=58⟩.Google Scholar
Pollack, H., Kaplan, G. A., House, J. S., and Schoeni, R. F. (2008). Social and Economic Policies as Health Policy: Moving Toward a New Approach to Improving Health in America. In Schoeni, R.F., House, J.S., Kaplan, G.A., and Pollack, H. (Eds.), Making Americans Healthier: Social and Economic Policy as Health Policy, pp. 379–390. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Rogers, R. G. (1992). Living and Dying in the USA: Sociodemographic Determinants of Death among Blacks and Whites. Demography, 29: 287–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rogers, R. G., Hummer, R. A., Krueger, P., and Pampel, F. (2005). Mortality Attributable to Cigarette Smoking in the United States. Population and Development Review, 31(2): 259–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, R. G., Hummer, R. A., Nam, C. B., and Peters, K. (1996). Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Behavioral Factors Affecting Ethnic Mortality by Cause. Social Forces, 74: 1419–1438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saenz, R. and Morales, M. C. (2005). Demography of Race and Ethnicity. In Poston, D. L. and Micklin, M. (Eds.) Handbook of Population, pp. 169–206. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Satcher, D., Fryer, G. E. Jr., McCann, J., Troutman, A., Woolf, S. H., and Rust, G. (2005). What If We Were Equal? A Comparison of the Black-White Mortality Gap in 1960 and 2000. Health Affairs, 24(2): 459–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shapiro, T. M., Meschede, T., and Sullivan, L. (2010). The Racial Wealth Gap Increases Fourfold. Research and Policy Brief (May, 2010), Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Brandeis University.Google Scholar
Sloan, F. A., Ayyagari, P., Salm, M., and Grossman, D. (2010). The Longevity Gap Between Black and White Men in the United States at the Beginning and End of the 20th Century. American Journal of Public Health, 100(2): 357–363.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smelser, N. J., Wilson, W. J., and Mitchell, F. (Eds.) (2001). America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, Volumes I and II. Washington, DC: National Research Council.Google Scholar
Stewart, Q. T. (2008). The Shape of Inequality: Racial Disparities in Age-Specific Mortality. Biodemography and Social Biology, 54: 152–182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tienda, M. and Mitchell, F. (Eds.) (2006). Multiple Origins, Uncertain Destinies: Hispanics and the American Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Trejo, S. J. (2003). Intergenerational Progress of Mexican-Origin Workers in the U.S. Labor Market. Journal of Human Resources, 38: 467–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turra, C. M. and Elo, I. T. (2008). The Impact of Salmon Bias on the Hispanic Mortality Advantage: New Evidence from Social Security Data. Population Research and Policy Review, 27(5): 515–530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turra, C. M. and Goldman, N. (2007). Socioeconomic Differences in Mortality among U.S. Adults: Insights into the Hispanic Paradox. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 62B: S184–S192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waters, M. (2002). The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity: Some Examples from Demography. In Denton, N. A. and Tolnay, S. E. (Eds.), American Diversity: A Demographic Challenge for the Twenty-First Century, pp. 25–49. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Williams, D. R. and Jackson, P. B. (2005). Social Sources of Racial Disparities in Health. Health Affairs, 24(2): 325–334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, D. R., Lavizzo-Mourey, R., and Warren, R. (1994). The Concept of Race and Health Status in America. Public Health Reports, 109: 126–142.Google ScholarPubMed
Williams, D. R., Mohammed, S. A., Leavell, J., and Collins, C. (2010). Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Health: Complexities, Ongoing Challenges, and Research Opportunities. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1186: 69–101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, D. R. and Sternthal, M. (2010). Understanding Racial-ethnic Disparities in Health: Sociological Contributions. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51(S): S15–S27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed