Income Inequality and Mortality in US Counties: Does Minority Racial Concentration Matter?

Abstract

The relationship between income inequality and mortality is robust for counties in the United States. Minority concentration interacts with income inequality, resulting in higher mortality in counties with low inequality and a high percentage of Blacks than in counties with high inequality and a high percentage of Blacks.

The Determinants of AIDS Mortality: Evidence from a State-Level Panel

“…Although deaths were highest among Whites in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, the shift in many states towards increasing mortality among Blacks (McGinnis et al 2003) is consistent with studies that find lower health status among Blacks (Grant et al 2000;McLaughlin and Stokes 2002). Also, with AIDS deaths highest among individuals between the ages of 25 and 54 (US Department of Health and Human Services 2004), we expect age distribution to play a part in explaining AIDS mortality rates.…”

Person and Place: The Compounding Effects of Race/Ethnicity and Rurality on Health

“…20 As the proportion of Blacks in the population tween rural communities are obscured by a global definition. 18 Finally, we are limited by the available literature and by population distributions to examining issues pertaining to Black, Hispanic, and, to a lesser extent, American Indian/Alaska Native rural populations.…”

County Level Suicide Rates and Social Integration: Urbanicity and Its Role in the Relationship

“…Since variance in death rates is greater in counties with smaller populations, weighted least squares regression is used, weighting the dependent variable by using the inverse of the variance of the county-level suicide rates (McLaughlin and Stokes, 2002). Regression is also used to make comparisons concerning suicide rates at the various levels of urbanicity.…”

“…The relationship between income and suicide rates is most commonly measured in one of two ways: as income per capita (Chuang & Huang, 1997;Eckersley & Dear, 2002;Hansmann & Quigley, 1982;McLaughlin & Stokes, 2002;McLaughlin, Stokes, & Nonoyama, 2001;and Pampel & Williamson, 2001) or as median family income (Ellison et. al., 1997;Faupel et.al., 1987;.…”

“…Researchers have found that in areas of high income inequality, as measured by the Gini Index, violent crime rates, all-cause mortality rates, and specifically suicide rates are higher (see: Eckersley & Dear, 2002;Hansmann & Quigley, 1982;Lynch, Smith, Harper, & Hillemeier, 2004;McLaughlin & Stokes, 2002;McLaughlin, Stokes, & Nonoyama, 2001;and Pampel & Williamson, 2001). …”