Cross race comparisons between SES health gradients among African–American and white women at mid-life

Patricia B. Reagan and Pamela J. Salsberry

Social Science & Medicine, 2014, vol. 108, issue C, 81-88

Abstract: This study explored how multiple indicators of socioeconomic status (SES) inform understanding of race differences in the magnitude of health gains associated with higher SES. The study sample, 1268 African–American women and 2066 white women, was drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979. The outcome was the Physical Components Summary from the SF-12 assessed at age 40. Ordinary least squares regressions using education, income and net worth fully interacted with race were conducted. Single measure gradients tended to be steeper for whites than African–Americans, partly because “sheepskin” effects of high school and college graduation were higher for whites and low income and low net worth whites had worse health than comparable African–Americans. Conditioning on multiple measures of SES eliminated race disparities in health benefits of education and net worth, but not income. A discussion of current public policies that affect race disparities in levels of education, income and net wealth is provided.

Keywords: Social gradient; US; Race differences; Socioeconomic status; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614001324
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:108:y:2014:i:c:p:81-88

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.02.028

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().