Race, Skin tone, and Health Inequality in the U.S.

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 14. Research at the Intersection of Race and Health

Abstract

The article links the literatures on race and skin tone inequality in the United States to offer new evidence on the interrelationship between race and skin tone in the patterning of mental and physical health between African Americans and Whites. Using merged data from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL) and the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication (NCS-R), findings indicate that racial differences in DSM-IV mental disorder, DSM-IV mood disorders, hypertension, and diabetes are much more pronounced than differences by skin tone relative to White Americans. In fact, analyses that compare skin tone differences among African Americans show very few differences across skin tone groups. These findings highlight the powerful role that race, regardless of skin tone, plays in structuring mental and physical health disparities. The results of this study have implications for studying race and skin tone in sociological research, as well as for policies that target health inequality.

Author

• Patricia Louie, University of Toronto