Race, Gender, and SES Disparities in Self-Assessed Health, 1974-2004

Abstract

Despite improvements in the status of Blacks and women over the past 30 years, racial and gender disparities in mortality and morbidity persist. Using General Social Survey (GSS) data from 1974 to 2004, the authors explore the extent to which race, gender, and socioeconomic status converge to produce differences in self-assessed health. The intersectionality paradigm is used to guide this work on health disparities. The authors find that the gender gap in self-assessed health has narrowed significantly over this 30-year time period. This decreased gap is especially pronounced because of the marked improvement over time in Black women's reports of their health. However, Black women continue to report the lowest levels of self-assessed health even in 2004. In fact, Black women who hold a college degree report worse health than White men, White women, and Black men with a high school diploma.

Social integration: How is it related to self-rated health?

“…It has been reported that better socioeconomic indicators, e.g., higher income, being employed, owning a house, and higher education level, have proved to be positively related to better perceived health [23,[35][36][37]. This could be partly because these socio-economic advantages facilitate access to and use of health care and preventive services [22].…”

“…Participants were asked to rate their health in the Eating and Health (EH) module of ATUS a 5-point scale (1-poor, 2-fair, 3-good, 4-very good, 5-excellent). Self-rated health has been a reliable and valid measure of overall health [22][23][24]. Among a total of 25,191 respondents, 4.4% rated their health as poor, 12.4% as fair, 29.4% as good, 33.5% as very good, and 20.3% as excellent.…”

The Effects of Caregiving on Women's Self-Assessed Health Status: An International Comparison

“…Both being a female caregiver or caring for a male are predictors of poorer SAHS, a finding that occurs internationally (see Cummings & Jackson, 2008;Kipp et al, 2008;Rabinowitz et al, 2007). The ability to gauge the effect of gender separately is one of the advantages of using the effect size statistic, rather than the value of the beta coefficient in analysis.…”

“…Interventions designed to impact caregiver well-being must continue for now to be focused on women (Cummings & Jackson, 2008;Ekwall & Hallberg, 2007). Two areas in particular emerge as needing to be prioritized for future interventions directed toward this group: (a) the need for high quality, accessible health care; and (b) the need for income support programs.…”

What Money Can (and Can't) Buy: A Behavior Genetic Analysis of the Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Socioeconomic Advantage in Modern America

“…Further, racial inequalities in terms of health and longevity have also long existed (Braveman, Cubbin, Egerter, Williams, & Pamuk, 2010;Williams, 2012;Williams et al, 2010), and are observed even after accounting for socioeconomic disparities (Braveman, Cubbin, Egerter, Williams, & Pamuk, 2010;Williams et al, 2010). Some research suggests that the intersectionality between race and SES may have less of an impact on self-rated health compared with 30 years ago, but intersectionality effects do persist (Cummings & Jackson, 2008). A noted limitation of this dissertation is that we did not account for the role of race/ethnicity in our analyses.…”