Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Leisure-time Physical Activity in California: Patterns and Mechanisms

Evidence has shown that racial/ethnic minorities in the United States are less likely than whites to engage in leisure-time physical activity (LTPA); yet few studies to date have included Asian subgroups in the analyses and mechanisms underlying these disparities are not well known. This study uses data from the 2007 California Health Interview Survey (N = 37,164) to examine racial/ethnic disparities in self-reported adherence to LTPA recommendations and to explore the mediating roles of socioeconomic status (SES), acculturation, and neighborhood perceptions. Nine racial/ethnic groups were included: non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Mexicans, and six largest Asian subgroups. Results confirm that racial/ethnic minorities are, in general, less likely than whites to meet LTPA recommendations, whereas heterogeneity is also evident across Asian subgroups. No significant disparity is revealed for the Japanese and Filipinos but whites are advantaged compared to all other Asian groups. Educational attainment, percent of lifetime spent in the United States and access to park, playground, or open space are significantly associated with meeting LTPA recommendations. SES and acculturation play differential roles in explaining group disparities for blacks, Mexicans, and some Asian subgroups. Perceived neighborhood environment does not mediate LTPA disparities by race/ethnicity. Net of these mediators, the advantages of whites in meeting LTPA recommendations persist for blacks, Mexicans, the Chinese, and Koreans. Future research should theorize and operationalize additional multilevel pathways linking race/ethnicity and LTPA while assessing measurement errors in the existing constructs.     

Low Social Status Markers: Do They Predict Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence?

Some markers of social disadvantage are associated robustly with depressive symptoms among adolescents: female gender and lower socioeconomic status (SES), respectively. Others are associated equivocally, notably black v. white race/ethnicity. Few studies examine whether markers of social disadvantage by gender, SES, and race/ethnicity jointly predict self-reported depressive symptoms during adolescence; this was our goal. Secondary analyses were conducted on data from a socioeconomically diverse community-based cohort study of non-Hispanic black and white adolescents (N = 1,263, 50.4% female). Multivariable general linear models tested whether female gender, black race/ethnicity, and lower SES (assessed by parent education and household income) and their interactions predicted greater depressive symptoms reported on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Models adjusted for age and pubertal status. Univariate analyses revealed more depressive symptoms in females, blacks, and participants with lower SES. Multivariable models showed females across both racial/ethnic groups reported greater depressive symptoms; blacks demonstrated more depressive symptoms than did whites, but when SES was included this association disappeared. Exploratory analyses suggested blacks gained less mental health benefit from increased SES. However, there were no statistically significant interactions among gender, race/ethnicity, or SES. Taken together, we conclude that complex patterning among low social status domains within gender, race/ethnicity, and SES predicts depressive symptoms among adolescents.     

Ethnic Variations in the Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Psychological Distress Among Latino Adults

This study investigated the association between SES and psychological distress among Latinos. Data were from the National Latino and Asian American Study’s Cuban (N = 577), Mexican (N = 868), and Puerto Rican (N = 495) adult samples. Regression analysis was used to assess the association between SES measured as education, household income, and wealth and psychological distress for three Latino subgroups, respectively. Results indicate that wealth is the most important predictor for all three Latino groups. Cubans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans are all disadvantaged on wealth possession and being in debt is associated with more psychological distress for them. The health benefit of wealth is especially significant for Cubans and Puerto Ricans. In contrast with findings in many previous studies, household income is not significantly related to mental health. The finding that only wealth is weakly associated with psychological distress among Mexicans suggests that the Hispanic Health Paradox only applies to Mexicans. Education is strongly associated with distress among Cubans, with college degrees producing the largest protection from mental illness. Findings also indicate that physical health and discrimination are strongly associated with psychological distress independent of the SES measures. This study contributes to an understanding of the health significance of SES among Latinos. It highlights the importance of examining ethnic variations in the association of socioeconomic status and mental health among Latinos and of identifying the mental health impact of various measures of socioeconomic status.     

Immigrant Group Differences in Job Satisfaction

Despite the large number of immigrants in Canada’s labor force, studies of immigrants to Canada have devoted insufficient attention to how country of birth and race are related to job satisfaction. Using data from a general population telephone survey of English-speaking workers in Toronto (n = 659), we investigate job satisfaction differences between white Canadian-born workers and immigrants born in the Caribbean, the Philippines, South Asia, China, Portugal, the United States, and the UK. Each of the immigrant groups is racially homogenous, and most of the groups are composed of (non-white) visible minorities. We find that the contrasts between Canadian-born whites and workers born in the Philippines and China remain substantial, and statistically significant under one-tailed tests, after age, gender, job type, income, job demands, job control, job support, workplace discrimination, job-related stress, and perceived unfairness at work are all controlled. We argue that social comparison theory offers the most compelling explanation for the persistence of group differences in job satisfaction after controls.     

Exploring Neighborhood Effects on Health and Life Satisfaction: Disentangling Neighborhood Racial Density and Neighborhood Income

This study examines the independent and synergistic influences of neighborhood racial density and neighborhood income on several indicators of health status and life satisfaction in a sample of 311 adult African Americans living in New York City. This is made possible by the two-stage sampling procedure that was used in the collection of the data, ensuring that respondents?? neighborhoods vary on both racial density and income. Findings from a series of OLS regression models that adjust standard errors to account for the non-independence of observations demonstrate that neighborhood income moderates the relationship between racial density and health and life satisfaction. When neighborhood income is low, high neighborhood racial density is detrimental for health and life satisfaction. However, when neighborhood income is high, neighborhood racial density is protective for health and life satisfaction. These results indicate that the role of neighborhood income needs to be considered when examining the relationship between neighborhood racial density, health, and life satisfaction. Moreover, these findings may provide insight for understanding the past conflicting results.     

Goal-Striving Stress and Racial Differences in Mental Health

This study investigated the associations among goal-striving stress, racial related stressors, and mental health. Goal-striving stress was defined as the discrepancy between aspiration for and achievement of a better way of life, weighted by the subjective probability of success, and the level of disappointment experienced if those life goals were not realized. Data are from the National Survey of American Life’s African American (N = 3,570) and non-Hispanic white (N = 891) adult samples. Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between goal-striving stress and five mental health outcomes: happiness, life satisfaction, self-esteem, psychological distress, and depressive symptoms. After controlling for socio-demographic factors, a personal problems checklist, and racial discrimination, goal-striving stress was significantly related to all mental health measures such that as goal-striving stress increased, mental health worsened. Additionally, the relationship of goal-striving stress to mental health was found to be conditional upon race. Specifically, goal-striving stress had a stronger effect among white Americans than African Americans. Goal-striving stress was associated differentially with lower levels of mental health for black and white Americans. Racial differences in the impact of goal-striving stress suggest a need for analyses exploring resilience and coping in relation to the impact of goal-striving stress on black–white differences in mental health.     

Workplace Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms: A Study of Multi-Ethnic Hospital Employees

Workplace discrimination reports have recently increased in the U.S. Few studies have examined racial/ethnic differences and the mental health consequences of this exposure. We examined the association between self-reported workplace discrimination and depressive symptoms among a multi-ethnic sample of hospital employees. Data came from the prospective case–control Gradients of Occupational Health in Hospital Workers (GROW) study (N = 664). We used the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) to assess depressive symptoms and measured the occurrence, types, and frequency of workplace discrimination. African Americans were more likely than other racial/ethnic employees to report frequent and multiple types of discrimination exposure. Multivariate relationships were examined while controlling for socio-demographic factors, job strain, and general social stressors. After adjustment, workplace discrimination occurrence and frequency were positively associated with depressive symptoms. The positive association between workplace discrimination and depressive symptoms was similar across racial and ethnic groups. Reducing workplace discrimination may improve psychosocial functioning among racial/ethnic minority hospital employees at greatest risk of exposure.     

School-Based Racial and Gender Discrimination among African American Adolescents: Exploring Gender Variation in Frequency and Implications for Adjustment

The present study examined school-based racial and gender discrimination experiences among African American adolescents in Grade 8 (n = 204 girls; n = 209 boys). A primary goal was exploring gender variation in frequency of both types of discrimination and associations of discrimination with academic and psychological functioning among girls and boys. Girls and boys did not vary in reported racial discrimination frequency, but boys reported more gender discrimination experiences. Multiple regression analyses within gender groups indicated that among girls and boys, racial discrimination and gender discrimination predicted higher depressive symptoms and school importance and racial discrimination predicted self-esteem. Racial and gender discrimination were also negatively associated with grade point average among boys but were not significantly associated in girls’ analyses. Significant gender discrimination X racial discrimination interactions resulted in the girls’ models predicting psychological outcomes and in boys’ models predicting academic achievement. Taken together, findings suggest the importance of considering gender- and race-related experiences in understanding academic and psychological adjustment among African American adolescents.     

The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans

This study contributes to the research literature on colorism–discrimination based on skin tone—by examining whether skin darkness affects the likelihood that African Americans will experience school suspension. Using data from The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, logistic regression analyses indicated that darker skin tone significantly increased the odds of suspension for African American adolescents. Closer inspection of the data revealed that this overall result was disproportionately driven by the experiences of African American females. The odds of suspension were about 3 times greater for young African American women with the darkest skin tone compared to those with the lightest skin. This finding was robust to the inclusion of controls for parental SES, delinquent behavior, academic performance, and several other variables. Furthermore, this finding was replicated using similar measures in a different sample of African Americans from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The results suggest that discrimination in school discipline goes beyond broad categories of race to include additional distinctions in skin tone.     

Beyond Residential Segregation: Mobility-Based Connectedness and Rates of Violence in Large Cities

A longstanding finding is that neighborhood racial segregation is linked to violence. In this paper, we look beyond neighborhoods of residence to consider the everyday mobility of urbanites in their daily rounds. Analyzing estimates of neighborhood mobility from largescale social media data in the 50 largest American cities, we find that residential segregation by race is not only associated with higher violence but also lower equitability of travel across neighborhoods and a lower concentration of visits to common hubs. Further, the interaction of equitable and concentrated mobility is significantly associated with rates of violence, controlling for both racial and income segregation, education, city size, and density. There is little evidence, however, that patterns of everyday mobility mediate the influence of residential racial segregation. Both dimensions of the structural connectedness of cities—one rooted in place of residence, and the other encompassing interneighborhood exposure based on travel throughout the metropolis—are implicated in violence.     

“My Life was Filled with Constant Anxiety”: Anti-Immigrant Discrimination,Undocumented Status,and Their Mental Health Implications for Brazilian Immigrants

Immigration reform and the various costs associated with undocumented immigration have been in national headlines in the past few years. The growth of Latinos as the US’ largest ethno-racial minority has sparked debates about the “browning” of the United States and led to an increase in anti-immigrant discrimination. While some researchers have documented the effects of racial discrimination on the mental health of ethno-racial minorities in the United States, less has explored how anti-immigrant discrimination and undocumented status influence the mental and psychological well-being of Latino immigrants, more specifically Brazilian immigrants, in the United States. Relying on data from in-depth interviews conducted with 49 Brazilian return migrants who immigrated to the United States and subsequently returned to Brazil, this paper will examine how their experiences living as racialized and primarily undocumented immigrants in the United States influenced their mental health. Specifically, I demonstrate that respondents experienced ethno-racial and anti-immigrant discrimination and endured various challenges that had negative implications for their mental health. This paper will also discuss additional factors that researchers should take into account when examining immigrants’ mental health and the challenges immigrants encounter in a racialized society with increasing anti-immigrant sentiment.     

Race,SES, and Obesity Among Men

Over the last decade, obesity has increased significantly among men but few national studies have empirically examined racial and socioeconomic differences in obesity among men. In this paper, we utilized logistic regression to evaluate the potential associations that race and socioeconomic status may have with obesity among men in the National Survey of American Life: an in-person household survey of non-institutionalized U.S. blacks and whites who lived in communities where at least 10% of the community residents were black Americans. A greater proportion of black men were likely to be obese than white men, but no interaction among race, SES, and obesity was detected when potential confounding variables were included. There was not a relationship between SES and obesity for white men, but there was an apparent positive relationship between SES and obesity for black men that did not remain significant in adjusted models. No relationship was found between age and obesity among black men, though white men who were 55 and older were more likely than those 18–34 to be obese in confounder adjusted models. Among white men, no relationships were found between obesity and education, household income, or marital status. Black men in the lowest income category were less likely to be obese than those in the highest income category, in bivariate but not adjusted models. These findings suggest that the way racial, economic, stress and behavioral factors combine to affect obesity in black and white men may be different.     

Sounding Like Your Race in the Employment Process: An Experiment on Speaker Voice,Race Identification,and Stereotyping

Research has shown that listeners can identify black and white speakers with high accuracy rates from voice alone, but few studies have investigated whether individuals can identify Asian American native English speakers. In a three-part hypothetical employment process experiment, recordings of white, black, and US-born Asian American voices are used to test participants’ (N = 49) race identification of unseen speakers, evaluations of speakers’ employability, and accuracy of race identification with the introduction of headshots. Key findings show the following: judges demonstrate high accuracy rates of identifying white and black speakers based on voice alone, judges rated the black speaker at least eight times less likely to be hired than the white and Asian American speakers, and accuracy rates of race identification for the Asian American speaker rose dramatically with the introduction of headshots. The study contributes to research on Asian American English speech and extends work on stereotyping and employment discrimination.     

Effect of School Racial Composition on Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms from Adolescence Through Early Adulthood

We investigate the effect of high school racial composition, measured as percent of non-Hispanic white students, on trajectories of depressive symptoms from adolescence to early adulthood. We also explore whether the effect of school racial composition varies by respondent race/ethnicity and whether adult socioeconomic status mediates this relationship. We analyzed four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health using 3-level linear growth models. We restricted our sample to respondents enrolled in grades 9–12 in 1994/5 who were interviewed at a minimum in Waves I and IV. This resulted in 10,350 respondents enrolled in 80 high schools in 1994/5 (5,561 whites, 2,030 blacks, 1,834 Hispanics, 738 Asians, and 187 of other race). As the percentage of white students increased at the high school respondents attended in 1994/5, blacks reported more depressive symptoms. This effect did not vary by age. In comparison, Asian and Hispanic respondents who attended predominantly white high schools had lower levels of depressive symptoms than their counterparts who attended predominantly minority schools, but they also experienced a slower decline in depressive symptoms through early adulthood. Adult SES mediated the relationship between high school racial composition and depressive symptoms for black, but not for Asian or Hispanic respondents. Our results suggest that high school racial composition is associated with trajectories of depressive symptoms through early adulthood, but the effect differs by respondents’ race/ethnicity. Racial/ethnic disparities in depressive symptoms during early adulthood may have their origins in adolescence.     

Who is More Likely to “Not See Race”? Individual Differences in Racial Colorblindness

Many Americans endorse a colorblind racial ideology, meaning they strive to “not see race” and emphasize sameness and equal distribution of resources across racial lines. Currently, there is an absence of studies examining the personality and individual difference correlates of racial colorblindness. The current study investigated the association between three different aspects of racial colorblindness (unawareness of racial privilege, unawareness of institutional discrimination, and unawareness of blatant racism) and the Big 5, empathy, and aggression in white undergraduates. Our results revealed two divergent patterns. Unawareness of racial privilege was related to lower openness and perspective taking, but more empathic concern, whereas unawareness of blatant racism and unawareness of institutional discrimination were related to lower agreeableness, perspective taking, and empathic concern. These results are discussed in relation to the broader literature on prejudice and personality.     

Perceived Racial Discrimination in Health Care and Race Differences in Physician Trust

Racial discrimination in health care is more often perceived by racial minority patients than by whites. In this study, we explored whether two types of perceived racial discrimination, perceptions that the healthcare system is racially biased in general (perceived institutional racial discrimination) and perceptions that one has personally encountered racial discrimination while seeking health care (perceived interpersonal racial discrimination), mediated racial differences in patients’ trust in physicians. We examined this in a sample of black (N = 127) and white (N = 303) patients being treated in two Veterans Affairs orthopedic clinics for advanced osteoarthritis. Patients completed measures of perceived institutional and interpersonal racial discrimination in health care before meeting with an orthopedic surgeon and a measure of physician trust after the visit. Using a multiple mediator bootstrapping procedure, we tested whether perceived institutional and/or interpersonal racial discrimination mediated the association between race and trust. Compared to whites, blacks reported lower physician trust (M = 4.00 vs. 4.17, β = ?0.15, 95 % CI = ?0.25, ?0.05), more perceived institutional racial discrimination (M = 3.13 vs. 2.60, β = 0.43, 95 % CI = 0.25, 0.61), and more perceived interpersonal racial discrimination (M = 1.94 vs. 1.21, β = 0.60, 95 % CI = 0.47, 0.74). Perceived interpersonal, but not institutional, racial discrimination mediated the race difference in physician trust and accounted for 55 % of the variance. Our finding that lower physician trust among black patients than white patients was explained by perceptions of interpersonal racial discrimination in health care suggests that issues of racial discrimination may need to be addressed in order to foster minority patients’ trust in physicians.     

Race, Genetic Ancestry, and Health

Knowledge from human genetic research continuously challenges the notion that race and biology are inextricably linked, with implications across biomedical and public health disciplines. However, biomedical research continues to explore health and disease under a racial framework ignoring and at times confounding the identification of true biological and/or environmental risk factors. Within this article, we present a brief overview of the use of race in biomedical research and studies of human genome variation and how genetic ancestry may help us understand health disparities. We believe that the casual use of “race” to define groups in biomedical research has contributed to our limited understanding of complex disease etiology and risk factors driving health disparities.     

Phenotypic Variations in Violence Involvement: Results from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health

Numerous studies suggest that our society is stratified not only by race and class, but also by phenotypic characteristics. The main objective of the present investigation was, using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, to elucidate the link between phenotype and violence involvement. Two outcomes were examined: being a perpetrator of violence and criminal justice system contact. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses were conducted on Asian, black and Hispanic respondents and as well as on the subsample of siblings. Independent variables included phenotype, socioeconomic status, other family, peer and neighborhood effects. Notwithstanding a certain degree of heterogeneity of outcomes across race–ethnicity, the results indicate a negative relationship between proximity to the European phenotype and the likelihood of violence involvement. In other words, the darker one’s complexion, eye and hair color, the higher the likelihood of violence involvement.     

Hardship Among Older Adults in the HRS: Exploring Measurement Differences Across Socio-Demographic Characteristics

Measures of hardship have been proffered as better indicators of economic well-being than traditional measures of socioeconomic status (SES). However, there is a dearth of research on latent factor structures and measurement bias in items assessing hardship across socio-demographic characteristics, especially among older adults. As such, the purpose of this study was to determine the factor structure of items measuring hardship in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and to determine measurement bias across socio-demographic groups (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, and age). The participants were HRS subjects who completed an additional psychosocial survey (N = 3074). The results revealed a single latent factor for hardship (comparative fit index = 0.99, root mean square error of approximation = 0.02) using confirmatory factor analysis on eight items in the HRS. The multiple indicator, multiple causes (MIMIC) model was used to determine measurement bias in the items due to socio-demographic characteristics. Compared to white respondents, black respondents were more likely to endorse items of financial dissatisfaction (Odds Ratio (OR) = 2.19, 95 % Confidence Interval (CI) = 1.43, 3.35), while Latino respondents were more likely to endorse food insecurity (OR = 2.78, 95 % CI = 1.60, 4.83); and older individuals (age 65 and older) were less likely to endorse having moved to a worse residence/neighborhood (OR = 0.32, CI = 0.18, 0.57) and being unemployed (OR = 0.28, CI = 0.20, 0.38). These results indicate that there is differential item functioning for specific measures of hardship suggesting that there are differences observed for the measurement of hardship for these items across racial/ethnic and age groups.     

Racial Wage Disparity in US Cities

This paper estimates the conditional wage gaps between black and white full-time male workers at the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) level using data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses. The magnitudes of the wage gaps are found to vary substantially across location. As predicted in Becker's (The economics of discrimination, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1957) seminal theory on wage discrimination, we find that the wage gaps are greater in MSAs that have a larger proportion of black workers in the labor force. This is the most consistent result across all specifications and years. We also find the gaps to be greater where there is an overrepresented black population in jail and a more segregated population if the MSA is in the South. The proportion of workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement in the private sector is associated with greater relative black earnings. We find that although the relationship between race and wages has diminished over time as famously suggested in Wilson (The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978), the significance of race remains.