Health Consequences of Laws and Public Policies That Target, or Protect, Marginalized Populations

Abstract

Laws and public policies that are seemingly unrelated to health, nevertheless, can have health consequences in populations that are targeted, or protected, by that legislation. In this paper, I first review research showing that systems of oppression, such as racism and sexism, can cause negative health outcomes. I next discuss mechanisms underlying the relationship between such systems of oppression and negative health effects. Last, I review research showing that laws and public policies can be seen as components of systems of oppression and, as such, are linked to health outcomes. Some policies and laws I include in my review are anti-same-sex marriage bills, punitive immigration laws, stop and frisk policies, and state-level voter disenfranchisement policies. The link between health outcomes and laws and public policies has implications for the current political climate.

Structural Intersectionality as a New Direction for Health Disparities Research

“…Additionally, existing measures of structural racism and sexism can also be usefully expanded. Most structural racism and sexism measures focus on capturing area-based inequalities, but it is also important to explore the role of various discriminatory (or inclusive) laws, policies, and rules (e.g., voter disenfranchisement, stop and frisk, gerrymandering, and restrictive abortion laws; Krieger 2020; Taylor 2019). Moreover, to better understand the broad impacts of racism, future research should measure historical racism (e.g., lynching, redlining, racialized disinvestment) and cultural racism (e.g., antiblack attitudes, values, beliefs, and norms) and examine how they undergird contemporary structural racism and health inequities (see Hicken et al 2018; Jacoby et al 2018; Sewell 2016).…”

Structural Racism and Immigrant Health in the United States

“…For immigrants, this cultural racism includes the everyday expressions of anti-immigrant sentiments in media and community, anti-immigrant rhetoric in political and personal discourse, and anti-immigrant violence such as hate crimes and harassment. While it is difficult to measure how anti-immigrant sentiments directly impact health, they create an environment that enables harmful immigration policies and enforcement that clearly worsen health and exacerbate inequities (Morey, 2018; Taylor, 2020). This anti-immigrant climate further intersects with the racialization of immigrants to perpetuate specific stereotypes that negate citizenship and belonging; for example, Latino Americans are presumed to be “illegal” (Viruell-Fuentes et al, 2012), Asian Americans are seen as “perpetual foreigners” (Huynh et al, 2011), and Arab Americans are seen as “terrorists,” “fanatics,” and “enemies” whose faith conflicts with their loyalties to the state (Wray-Lake et al, 2008).…”

Structural Heteropatriarchy and Birth Outcomes in the United States

“…Structural dis crim i na tion encom passes mul ti ple fea tures of the social envi ron ment, includ ing existing pol i cies that CORRECTED PROOFS pro vide greater access to power and resources for cer tain groups and that dif fer en tially dis trib ute power and resources. Consequently, laws and pol i cies not directly related to health can poten tially impact health (Taylor 2019). A robust body of lit er a ture has emerged that doc u ments how LGB-spe cifc pol i cies (e.g., same-sex marriage bans, antiLGB dis crim i na tion leg is la tion) may harm sex ual minor ity health (Everett et al 2016;Hatzenbuehler 2009;Hatzenbuehler et al 2010;Hatzenbuehler et al 2011;Raifman et al 2017).…”