Racial health disparities are a consistent problem in the United States. Compared to whites, African Americans experience worse health outcomes both in terms of morbidity and mortality from various forms of chronic and infectious disease and continue to have lower life expectancy at birth. The causes of these disparities are not always immediately apparent, but previous literature on the topic indicates that they are rooted in larger structures of inequality which render disadvantaged populations more exposed and susceptible to disease. This study investigates the racial and socioeconomic dimensions of morbidity due to asthma, an increasingly-common chronic condition of poorly-understood etiology in metropolitan Detroit, an urban area marked by high levels of racial segregation and economic inequality. Data on asthma hospitalizations from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project were used, along with socioeconomic indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau, to (a) ascertain the magnitude of racial disparities in asthma hospitalization, (b) identify risk factors for hospitalization, and (c) determine the extent to which these risk factors explain any racial disparities. Descriptive statistics indicate that even after controlling for ZIP code socioeconomic position, black hospitalization rates for asthma were considerably higher than white rates at all levels of the socioeconomic hierarchy. Results of logistic regression models indicate that factors such as type of insurance and having other conditions in addition to asthma affect the risk of hospitalization for the condition but are able to account for only a small portion of the increased odds of hospitalization in the study area’s African American population. The findings highlighted in this study are important, but also demonstrate the necessity for further research on this topic.
Read
