Does Multiracial Matter? A Study of Racial Disparities in Self-Rated Health

Abstract

How do self-identified multiracial adults fit into documented patterns of racial health disparities? We assess whether the health status of adults who view themselves as multiracial is distinctive from that of adults who maintain a single-race identity, by using a seven-year (2001-2007) pooled sample of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). We explore racial differences in self-rated health between whites and several single and multiracial adults with binary logistic regression analyses and investigate whether placing these groups into a self-reported "best race" category alters patterns of health disparities. We propose four hypotheses that predict how the self-rated health status of specific multiracial groups compares with their respective component single-race counterparts, and we find substantial complexity in that no one explanatory model applies to all multiracial combinations. We also find that placing multiracial groups into a single "best race" category likely obscures the pattern of health disparities for selected groups because some multiracial adults (e.g., American Indians) tend to identify with single-race groups whose health experience they do not share.

Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health and Health Care among U.S. Adolescents

“…Without the inclusion of multiracial adolescents, unique and important disparities would have been overlooked and not documented. A possible reason for newly identified multiracial youth disparities is providing multiracial race/ethnicity as a choice, rather than grouping an individual into a self‐reported “best race category” (Bratter and Gorman ).…”

The color of health: Skin color, ethnoracial classification, and discrimination in the health of Latin Americans

“…Most importantly, these incongruences or differences in categorization can result in meaningful differences in the measurement of ethnoracial health disparities (Amaro & Zambrana, 2000; Bratter & Gorman, 2011; Jones et al, 2008). Studies in Latin America, where the examination of ethnoracial health inequities have only recently begun, tend to be based on self-identification.…”

Question Context and Priming Meaning of Health: Effect on Differences in Self-Rated Health Between Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Whites

“…One of the scales ranging from “excellent,” “very good,” “good,” “fair,” to “poor” is popular in the U.S., while another scale using “very good” to “very poor,” supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), is popular elsewhere. 21 The popularity of SRH in not only health research 22-26 but other social sciences 27-31 led the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) to organize a conference dedicated to this particular item, Conference on the Cognitive Aspects of the Self-Rated Health Status , in 1993. 32 Due to its proven utility as a strong and independent predictor of subsequent mortality, 33-39 various health conditions, 40-43 and health care utilization, 44-46 the WHO, 47 the US Centers for Disease Control 48 and the European Commission 49 have recommended SRH as a reliable measure of monitoring population health.…”