Racial Residential Segregation and Metabolic Syndrome: Findings from 2003-2008 NHANES Data

• In Event: 322 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Neighborhood/ Community Context

Abstract

This paper addresses the association between racial segregation and metabolic syndrome among US adults. Biological risk profiles including metabolic syndrome refer to measurable and quantifiable physiological parameters, which serve as indices for morbidity and mortality. The application of biomarker data to the study of social determinants of health is one of the crosscutting issues that examines how physiologic functioning and social environment factors interact to produce health risks. Specific to health disparities by race and ethnicity, incorporating biomarker data provides the opportunity to study how the construct of race and ethnicity “get under skin” through exposure to psychosocial stressors such as racial discrimination and migration-related stress. This research will add to this literature by examining whether race-based residential segregation and immigrant concentration are correlated with individual risk of metabolic syndrome. Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data, we expect to find that blacks living in segregated neighborhoods will have higher biological risks. At the same time, immigrants living primarily with their co-ethnics or with other immigrants will have lower biological risks. This paper extends previous research by theorizing racial segregation and immigrant concentration as two distinct domains of residential patterns that have divergent implications for health.

Authors

• Kelin Li, University of Utah

• Ming Wen, University of Utah

• Jessie Fan, University of Utah